The heartless and the unloved
by Kid.Dice
Summary: Sesshomaru Ookami is everything a successful man should be-wealthy, powerful, and heir to his father's empire. That is, until his half-brother, Inuyasha, becomes the new successor. After discovering his brother's relationship with a prostitute, Kagome Higurashi, Sesshomaru decides to take matters into his own hands and reclaim what's rightfully his-at least, until he meets Rin.
1. Chapter 1: Tarnished jewel

1.

To put it simply, Sesshomaru Ookami cared about nothing and no one. He had never cared before, whether it be his oppressive father who spent most of his days in the soaring skyscrapers and buildings he erected in his honor than in his own house and the presence of his own family. Even more far-fetched than the idea of caring about his father was the question of Sesshomaru caring about Inuyasha, his half-brother (the half part he cared enough to stress), a boy born to his father by a mistress, a child who he had come to resent as the main successor to his father's estate. Sesshomaru was the eldest son, for God's sake, and the legitimate one, not that the shadowy and completely incomprehensible man that was his father cared.

Essentially, Sesshomaru cared about nothing. While he wanted money, he was willing to throw it away for his own pleasure, and while he wanted his father's estate, it was as a man coldly covets revenge so he can throw it, excruciating and sharp, into the faces of his enemies. When Sesshomaru thought about it, at least he had a lot of those. And so, as Sesshomaru stood in one of his father's five star hotels with the girl he'd picked up solely to use for her father's business connections, and then she tearfully asked if he cared about her at all, there was only one answer he could think of:

"Hell no."

Her face contorted with mascara tears and a lip-sticked scowl, the woman raised her hand. Sesshomaru, giving her open palm a cold glance, caught the woman's wrist swiftly in his own and returned her look of indignation with a glare of such disdain that it could have quelled a pack of wolves.

"While I may be willing to tolerate your extravagant wastefulness of my father's money and my time, you're not worthy of touching my face," Sesshomaru said coolly, and his gold eyes flashed. The girl stared at him in horror, desperately trying to snatch herself away. "Be it your lips or your slap."

"You bastard!" she screamed, and wiping the dark tears tracks from her face, she hissed, "don't you give a damn about my father's money? Throwing me away like some tramp you picked up in the street—"

"Not even all your father's resources would be high enough a bribe for me to put up with a pathetic brat like you," Sesshomaru answered, and walking through the crowd of people watching him with wide, petrified eyes, he pushed open the hotel double doors. His date watched him in outrage, her fists clenched so tightly that her fake nails cut into her skin.

"Just wait until I tell my father!" the girl screamed, her hair falling like dark tentacles into her face, her mouth a dark, ravenous hole. Without their careful make-up and perfect poise, Sesshomaru thought, these high-class women were all the same, simpering smiles, unbearable giggles that screeched in his ears, disheveled, gold-digging banshees.

"You can tell your father," Sesshomaru's back replied, his silver-blonde hair falling down his shoulders, his regal figure as composed and invulnerable as ever, "that the next time he wants my father's patronage, he had better send me a business proposal, not a marriage one."

…

"Lord Sesshomaru," Jaken gasped as Sesshomaru slipped into the limousine. While unseemly and indecisive, Jaken served as the perfect servant, obedient in every sense, and unlike the other servants at the manor, he obeyed him alone and not his father. It was Sesshomaru's main interests to surround himself with obedient followers and those who would add to his legacies rather than his father's. That, and to obtain his father's wealth by disinheriting that interfering boy that was his half-brother.

"Take me back to the mansion, Jaken," Sesshomaru commanded, smoothing out the ruffles in his expensive suit-jacket and trousers. "I have business I need to attend to."

"That was a, um, rather short dinner, sir. Will your date not be needing a ride back?"

"That woman," Sesshomaru said plainly, his gold eyes aloof, "doesn't matter. I have just received some very…intriguing information."

Jaken gulped, recognizing the tone in his master's voice. It was that characteristically calculating tone, manipulative and cold, that usually resulted in Jaken undertaking some impossible task with business associates and crooks and occasionally hired guns. "And what would that be, Lord Sesshomaru?"

"That, my loyal servant," said Sesshomaru, and he opened up his briefcase, stroking a manila folder ponderously with his long fingers. Despite the usual cold detachment on his face, Sesshomaru's eyes flashed with excitement, "is some dirt on my 'dear' baby brother."

Jaken breathed out a sigh of relief, happy though he was to carry out his beloved master's orders that usual entailed him being chased down by bodyguards and mobsters. At least he wasn't involved. "On master Inuyasha?"

"Not master for long," said Sesshomaru, and from the manila folder he plucked a couple photos that revealed, though blurry and at dizzying angles, a young girl with dark hair. In one of the photos a young man with long white-blonde hair grabbed the girl's arm, looking into her hazel eyes; in another, he smiled over her shoulder. "Even his taste in women is foul," Sesshomaru said, and he held the red business card before his wild gold eyes. "Who would have thought that he'd involve himself with a prostitute."

The car abruptly swerved, and Jaken grabbed the wheel frantically beneath his minute hands, honking back at the other cars he nearly rammed into. Sesshomaru sat unperturbed and aloofly in his seat, oblivious to all but the folder sitting securely in his lap.

"A-a," Jaken gasped, sweat beading his ugly face, "prostitute? The successor of the Ookami empire is in a relationship with a girl from the red-light district?"

"So it seems," Sesshomaru said simply, though he was barely paying heed to Jaken's words or his panic-stricken frenzy. All he could focus on was the look of sheer horror on his younger brother's face, his gold eyes wide, his shoulders stooped with the impact of the blow to his reputation. This news of a prostitute with the already thin ground of Inuyasha's illegitimate lineage and young age would be enough to send him falling onto his knees. "So it seems." Sesshomaru cast one last glance at the black-haired girl smiling out at him from the photograph, and thought if his brother had to go for a prostitute, he could have at least been a little more selective.

"C-couldn't this simply be a rumor or something the tabloids made up?" Jaken said nervously, feeling his master's malicious intent thick and stifling in the confined space of the car. When matters concerned Inuyasha, Lord Inutaisho, or the inheritance of the estate, Sesshomaru seemed to radiate pure, pulverizing coldness. Since matters rarely involved anything else other than the family, company, and succession nowadays, Jaken could barely serve his master Sesshomaru without feeling the cold sweat or the ulcer from stress that had recently developed in his stomach. Why did things have to be so difficult? "Do you really think Master Inuyasha would become involved in such a scandal…?"

"I expect nothing less—" Sesshomaru hissed, and glancing down at the picture of his brother's smiling face, he resisted the all too alluring temptation to tear the evidence into shreds. Revenge, he reminded himself, would come much later, much colder, and much more excruciatingly sweet. "—from the half-breed cur of a mistress."

…

Inuyasha reclined against the white-stone of the mansion, looking at his watch impatiently before switching from worry that maybe she had gotten into an accident and irritation that she wasn't here already. It wasn't easy for him to escape from his tutor's and their preaching about his succession of the estate and need to be fit for the company, et cetera.

"Where is that girl?" he said through clenched teeth. Though anger was usually his tone and a frown was usually carved into his face, Inuyasha was the undoubtedly handsome son of the undoubtedly powerful Lord Inutaisho, wealthiest of the wealthy, most powerful of the powerful men. From his father Inuyasha bore the hair so blonde it looked white, which he wore to the servant's and high-societies contempt in a long, unkempt cascade of silver. His gold eyes were also his father's work, like his damned older brother, though while his brother's gold eyes usually narrowed in cold glares, Inuyasha's were smoldering with anger unbridled, a will that could not be contained. The household hated him for it, and he hated this place for everything, for the scorn of his infamous mother, for the names they called him behind cupped hands and in leering, mocking tones.

"It's been over an hour," Inuyasha complained, though by now the irritation had subsided to concern. Kagome wasn't usually this late since she was the one who insisted that no one would see them. Their relationship, to Inuyasha's perpetual chagrin, had to be careful and hidden. Of course, his family would probably throw him out on the streets for it, and Kagome….with the precarious situation that she was already in, she couldn't have any more close calls. It was a situation that Inuyasha could barely stomach and Kagome withstood only by being as emotionless as a doll, as empty as a shell.

"Why," he said, slowly, bitterly, but tenderly all the same, "do I have to need her so goddamned badly?"

Inuyasha caught the sound of the crackle of gravel, and whipping his head around, he saw the girl. Though her clothes were cheap and disheveled, her hair fell in rich, dark waves over her shoulders and framed the delicate face, a face often bruised and bandaged and half-hidden by her bangs. As she looked hastily up at him, Inuyasha found the green eyes, avid, glistening, that he loved with such madness, such reckless, insatiable need. And, her eyes still fixed on him, Kagome tumbled into his open arms.

"Inuyasha," she gasped, almost disbelievingly for a moment, as she buried her face into his chest. "You're…here." Kagome let her arms loosen around him, but Inuyasha brought them tighter and close around his shoulders, wrapping his hands around her waist, feeling her light, unsteady weight, her presence. He breathed it in like he couldn't get enough of the scent of her.

"Of course I am." Inuyasha passed a hand over her face, his fingers gliding over a bruise. "You're the one who begged me to meet you here."

"It's been over an hour," Kagome answered.

"At least it's not like last time. You had me waiting in a goddamned storm—"

"That's when I thought you were a stalker!" Kagome protested, and she laid the side of her dark head on his shoulder. Inuyasha could feel her black hair against his mouth and pressed his lips against it. "You know, it's usually guys like that, perverts and stalkers, who end up at our place," Kagome said hollowly now. "The only guys I've ever known are like that. Just groping hands and disgusting, slobbery, simpering mouths." Kagome tried to laugh it up, and instinctively, Inuyasha held her tighter, closely, in his embrace.

"It's not like there aren't pigs just as bad here," he said, and uncontrollably, ringing, he could hear the voices of high-society wafting around him like wasps, like poisonous smog. He remembered a lovely but weak black-haired woman wrapping her arms tight around him as the women glared in her direction and the men grabbed at her with filthy, pudgy hands. "It's like hell in this place. Kill or be killed. You learn to live, somehow, with these cretins."

Kagome said nothing and eased into Inuyasha's arms. "Are you going to come over today?" She gave him a sad look, and Inuyasha could almost hear her thoughts: _Not that I'd blame you if you didn't want to step a foot in that place. _

Holding the side of Kagome's pale face in his hands, Inuyasha brought up her small, red, and madly intoxicating mouth for a kiss. For a long moment those two stood in the shadows of the mansion, pressed against one another, kissing deep and close, before Inuyasha drew his face away.

"Tomorrow," he said finally. "I'll go over tomorrow if I can survive another damned day of hell in this place."

Kagome gave him a small smile, and detaching herself from his arms, she slowly stepped away into the streets.

…

"What do you know about the brothel 'Shikon Jewel'?"

Miroku choked on his drink, and coughing, sputtering, he slowly raised his handsome head to Sesshomaru. Watching Miroku's pale face, Sesshomaru knew that he had chosen the right man to interrogate. Of course, his lowly half-brother's company would include this lecherous investor. He was about the same age as Inuyasha with short, tousled black hair and gold rings hanging from his ears. Whereas Sesshomaru was the famous heartthrob for his coldness, reserve, and sleekness, Miroku was famous for his open arms extended to all women, or in any case the buxom and delectable ones. Miroku was just as famous an investor and renovator as he was a skirt-chaser and ladies' man, and were there any man with expert knowledge of every well-known whorehouse and famous hostess in the red-light district, it was fittingly him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Miroku answered as he wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, and his eyes darted back and forth. "Inuyasha certainly is taking a long time…"

"I know that your renovation project for antique shrines is lacking fines," Sesshomaru continued coldly, his silver bangs just brushing against his golden eyes narrowed in distaste. He disdained dealing with Inuyasha's circle of friends almost as much as he hated dealing with Inuyasha himself. Of course, he thought, it suited the son of an adulterous whore to have companions that included lechers, and apparently now, prostitutes. What a pathetic boy his foolish father was lavishing with his entire estate, company, and wealth, wealth that Sesshomaru had spent almost all his life securing and increasing until his father's company transformed one of the most powerful, influential, indomitable businesses enterprises in Japan. And then he decided to throw it away on his illegitimate half-breed.

"Pathetic."

"I wouldn't say things like that when you so desperately need my help, 'Lord Sesshomaru'," answered Miroku with a scathing grin, and he poured some more wine into his glass. "Anyway, what does the great master of the Ookami family have to do with a simple business man like me? Getting tired of your prim and proper upper class women, or are you falling out of their favor and need some company?"

"I wasn't talking about you," Sesshomaru answered. "Not now, at least. And I'm doing this for the…betterment of my poor, misguided brother who seems to have fallen astray. Although I'm sure you have nothing to do with that."

"Of course not," Miroku replied smoothly and sipped at his drink. "Just as I'm sure that you care a lot about what's good for your _dear_ brother."

"I know that Inuyasha has been seen in the brothel 'Shikon Jewel', and more precisely," Sesshomaru removed a photo from his breast pocket depicting the dark-haired Kagome as she smiled against Inuyasha's arm, "he has been endorsing this prostitute. I want you to tell me all you know about Inuyasha's relationship with her and who this girl is."

"And what do you care? You've never given a damn about what Inuyasha did or who he associated with before." Miroku's lips curled up into a handsome, leering smile. "Or is it because of the recent, hmm, _changes_ in successors?"

"Are you trying to make me angry?" Sesshomaru didn't look angry; he looked completely, icily, and mercilessly indifferent to the idea of ripping this man to shreds right here and right now, with his bare hands if need be.

"Of course not," Miroku laughed. His dark eyes flashed ponderingly and he bent over his clasped hands. "It's just, I would be willing help you with your noble quest to help your brother, but I need some leverage. Do you know about a Miss Sango Ryoushi?"

"Should I care?"

"Not about her," Miroku said hastily. "I was just hoping, as her father is a prominent CEO, if maybe you could use your connections to create a little get-together for us."

"And here I thought the ladies' man would never get bored of playing around with tramps and call-girls," Sesshomaru replied icily.

"She just caught my eye," Miroku grinned, and continued, "and if you can do me that little favor, I'll do you yours."

…

"C'mon, sweetheart, just give me a little kiss."

"How about just a touch of that lovely hair, baby?"

"Back off," Kagome muttered, slapping away the outstretched hands of the several men, completely and utterly drunk by now, sitting by the counter of the bar. Shikon Jewel was more like a dingy hostess-club than it was really a brothel, but when it came down to the dirty details, the way the girls got money was mostly throw the sales of more than flirty smiles and caressing kisses.

Kagome wasn't in the mood today to put up with drunks who wouldn't pay her. Even as she wandered through the streets people's stares were constantly on her, on the short, skin-tight clothing her trade forced her to wear, on the fading bruises the last client had given her, on her rich, dark hair.

She needed the money, she reminded herself again and again. It was only for the money. She told herself that every time those filthy, large hands ran over her body, every time those alcohol-putrid mouths stole a kiss, every time Inuyasha watched her with those faraway eyes, knowing he couldn't bear it and she couldn't either.

A man with long, dark hair glided over to her and, smiling that devilish, hungry smile, he slipped his hands on Kagome's shoulders. "So?" he whispered into her ear, his voice as soft and slithering as snakes moving across her skin. "What's it going to be today, Miss Higurashi?"

Kagome felt the bruises throb on her arm, and the man's very touch brought the pain back to her, fresh, damningly real and repetitive. She wanted to run, to scream, to pull herself away. She imagined Inuyasha's eyes, so agonizing, so distant, so endearing, falling on the pitiful sight of her.

"Alright," Naraku hissed, and his mouth moved against her dark hair like a cool wind, chilling Kagome to the bone. "The usual, then."

Naraku pressed his mouth against her ear, and Kagome reminded herself she needed the money. It was for the money.

The vision of Inuyasha passed through her head before fading into grateful black.

…

"Lord Sesshomaru, you can't go down there by yourself!"

"Do I seem so incompetent that I can't find my way myself?" Sesshomaru said icily, stealing the car keys from Jaken's hand.

"But—but," Jaken stammered, flustered, proudly, as he looked desperately at his master. "That is my duty, milord! Allow me to accompany you!"

"I don't need any hindrances," Sesshomaru replied coldly, and grabbing his dark jacket over his shoulder, he slid into the car and drove away. He wanted no distractions, no obstacles—just the certain road to his brother's destruction, and he would take it himself. Setting eyes on the place was merely to fulfill his curiosity about the mess his brother had fallen into. A brothel, of all places? He had to see it himself, confirm the unbelievable rumor—

"Disgusting."

Sesshomaru stepped out of the car and found himself in front of an old building with peeling, china-red paint and the old sign of a glowing jewel chipped and faded. Of course, his useless brother had chosen this dump to find himself a girl, this wreck of a whorehouse.

As Sesshomaru pushed through the scarlet double doors, he felt the dumbstruck stares of the prostitutes and hostesses glued onto his regal figure. They watched him with gaping mouths and shining eyes, and as Sesshomaru threw back his long mane of white-blonde hair, the girls blushed and giggled to each other.

"Hello, handsome." Sesshomaru stood at the counter, and a woman with dark, arranged hair tied with a red feather sidled up to him. She removed her paper fan from her face and flashed him a crimson smile. "Can I interest you in a drink?"

"I'm looking for someone."

"Well, you're talking to the right person, then," the woman laughed, clicking her fan. "I'm the proprietress of this establishment. You can call me Kagura. What exactly are you looking for?"

Sesshomaru took the picture out of his pocket and slid it across the counter. "I need this girl."

Plucking the photo with her red-nailed fingers, Kagura replied, "Kagome Higurashi? Well, I'm afraid…she's with another customer right now?"

Of course, Sesshomaru thought, this was the girl his brother was mingling with, a girl who threw herself at countless other depraved men.

"Would you like another girl, Mr. Ookami?" Kagura continued, "it's hard not to recognize you from the papers. The son of the Ookami empire with money, power, good-looks." Kagura laughed. "Why the hell would a guy like you cater to our humble shop?"

"I'm not here for pleasure," Sesshomaru said dismissively and clicked his nails impatiently on the counter-top. "I'm here for business. It seems that my misguided brother has involved himself in this…unseemly place. It must be stopped."

Kagura smile turned cold and strained on her refined face, and she opened her face over her mouth. "Well, then, I can't help you. We only serve customers here. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave—" with a jab of her painted fan, Kagura called out, "Kanna, Kanna! Please escort this man out!"

When the girls looked uncertainly over at one another, Kagura beat her fan in her hands and said in aggravation, "of course, she's busy right now…" Kagura's red eyes flicked over to a dark corner of the brothel, and she shouted, "Rin!"

Sesshomaru heard the click of a door, and then the creak of the stairs as a small girl padded hastily down and into the brothel. She was certainly no young woman— her brown eyes peered helplessly through her dark bangs, her hair was so disheveled and dark it almost looked matted with dark, and she fumbled in her pink costume over to the counter.

"Rin, please escort this man out."

Sesshomaru couldn't move his gold eyes from the small, dark-haired girl shuffling, barefoot and obscenely costumed, before him. "You even sell children?" he hissed incredulously.

Kagura beat her fan into her open palm like a whip. "Of course not, we're a business, not a black market. Rin just cleans, cooks, and helps around here when it's necessary. It's an act of kindness that we let her stay here after her mother died. If we didn't, she'd be starving in the streets, and she probably would have to sell herself to sickos to get by. But then," Kagura smiled callously, her mouth a hook of white hemmed in blood-red, "why would someone like you care?"

Rin twisted her fingers together in her lap and lowered her gaze to the floor. For a moment her mouth opened, dumbly, astounded, and then it fell vainly closed.

"She can barely even speak," Kagura said icily. "Well, what are you waiting for, Rin? Show this man out."

Her dark head jerking and flying up to Kagura, Rin nodded, looking back at Sesshomaru, she pattered over to the door. She constantly looked back over her shoulder at the handsome stranger, staring with wide, enchanted eyes at his golden eyes, his long, bright hair, his regal and perfect figure.

Sesshomaru returned her look with a glare, and the girl quickly turned away, almost tripping over her own two feet. He couldn't believe the extent of the filth and degradation of this seedy place, even using children to serve customers and make money. This girl couldn't be over thirteen, and here she was, dressed in her garish, extravagant pink kimono, clumsily-applied rouge on her cheeks, an awkward pin tangled in her dark, wild hair.

"What a mess my foolish half-brother has gotten himself into."

As Rin pushed the heavy doors open, clanging, she gave Sesshomaru one, arresting look, her brown eyes fixed into his own, undaunted, probing. She fiddled with the pin in her hair for a moment, and then in a voice no more than a whisper, she said, "Y-you're looking for…Kagome…?"

And then her dirty face broke into a childish smile, so simple, so unmistakably pure for this foul place that Sesshomaru could not tear his gaze away. He had never seen so serene a smile in his high-class surroundings, steeped in wealth, in self-indulgence, in arrogance.

"She's nice," Rin said quietly, smiling a little, and then her pink dress flapping around her with the bright luridness of cotton candy, she disappeared behind the battered doors.

Sesshomaru watched the double doors close, and he stepped into his car, thinking about the sheer stupidity of his brother involving himself in this dingy brothel, how his succession could surely be eliminated, how he would procure his father's wealth— turning the thoughts of his imminent wealth and power in his head, Sesshomaru tried to distract himself from the thought of the young girl, smiling and bright and misplaced, that kept appearing every time he closed his cold golden eyes.


	2. Chapter 2: To each our own business

_Hey, this is Kid Dice and here's the second chapter of __The Heartless and the unloved. I want to thank everybody so far who has read and reviewed my work. I really appreciate it and please continue to support my work!_

* * *

2.

"Who would have thought?"

Miroku laid himself down on his hotel bed, trying hard not to think about the sting of the open palm that had just cut across his face like a whip and the look on that girl's face— Koharu? Kiri?— as she pressed her clothes to her bare body— well, unfortunately not entirely bare, clad only in her lacy undergarments— and stormed out of the suite.

As Miroku took a sip of his beer, he turned the little business card in his hands. Shikon Jewel. The last time he'd laid eyes on it, the name 'jewel' wasn't the first word that popped into his head to describe the derelict, smoke-filled dumpster. At least it had prime women.

"That arrogant Sesshomaru asking about a brothel," Miroku laughed, and tucked the card back into his pocket. He ran a weary hand through his forever tousled, somehow sexy hair. Well, at least the women he met up with said so. "Why'd he have to interrogate me? What Inuyasha does is Inuyasha's business; I'm not going to stick my neck into it."

Of course, in a way, Sesshomaru had been partially correct in assuming that he was the one who had introduced Inuyasha to the brothel. Well, not introduced exactly— Inuyasha had been forced to drag Miroku outside from the arms of the brothel girls after he'd wandered in, drunk, delirious, and miserable for that goddamned gorgeous Sango Ryoushi. Whenever Miroku got prowled the host-blub and brothels, it was always his friend Inuyasha's job to wrench him back, snarling at flirtatious consorts all the while.

"What's Inuyasha doing, anyway, in a brothel? Always bitching about me chasing women, and look where he landed himself," Miroku said, grinning. "Those Ookami brothers never cease to amaze me."

"Is that stuck-up girly finally gone?" A voice called from the bathroom, and out stepped a beautiful woman wrapped only in a bath towel and her eternal make-up. Oh yeah— _that_ was why the other girl slapped him and left. "She doesn't know how to have any fun. Don't tell me she's that Sango chic you're always moaning about."

Miroku ran his hands through his hair. Was he so drunk after he left the Ookami mansion that he'd picked up two girls instead? Oh well—twice the mind-numbing fun, twice the distraction from her. "Unfortunately not," Miroku sighed. "She'll barely look at me, let alone sleep with me."

"That's okay, darling, I'll still keep you company," the woman sighed into Miroku's face, but what Miroku really wanted was Sango, even if it was just a critical look and one of her frequent slaps across his face. It was the only time he could really feel her touch. "Just remember to support Shikon Jewel, will you?"

"Of course," Miroku replied, and thinking about the business card in his pocket, he almost couldn't believe what good taste Inuyasha could have in brothels.

…

"My Lord! My Lord Sesshomaru!"

Half-conscious, Sesshomaru beat Jaken's hand away from his arm, and his golden eyes slowly opened. Clutching his stinging hand, Jaken hovered around him in the empty business room of the Ookami enterprise, his wide eyes frantically fixed on his master.

"The meeting's over, my lord," Jaken said, and cried, "those pompous fools were ranting on for hours. No wonder you're tired with them wasting your valuable time!"

"It's not them," Sesshomaru said icily and raised a hand to his face. Ever since he went to that brothel, Shikon Jewel, he couldn't get his mind off of it. Every time he closed his eyes he could see the filthy interior of the old building, the awestruck girls watching him with hungry eyes, that damned proprietress, and Inuyasha's dark-haired favorite smiling at him from a photo. And then his thoughts turned, uncontrollably, reluctantly, to the little girl in the pink dress casting him that demure, unbearable smile.

"That damned Inuyasha," Sesshomaru muttered. It wasn't the girl, that small, fumbling girl that he was concerned with— what happened to her was none of his business, not how she labored in that shop, not her innocent youth, not the idea of depraved men touching her with greasy, lusty hands…

"Lord Sesshomaru?" Jaken asked, puzzled.

Sesshomaru paid his servant no attention. "It's the succession," Sesshomaru said to himself while Jaken watched him in bewilderment. What was plaguing him was the matter that had eaten up his days for almost three months now, his oppressive father's sudden, ludicrous decision to throw his empire on his illegitimate youngest son. What occupied every hour, every second of Sesshomaru's day was that half-breed, that damned Inuyasha, taking the empire, wealth, and power that he was born to receive, that he deserved.

"It's not that girl," Sesshomaru said under his breath.

"My Lord?" said Jaken, completely lost now.

"At least something came out of going to that hovel," Sesshomaru said and walked over to the limousine, slamming the door behind him. Jaken watched him reverently and dumbly from the driver's seat. "Now I know that girl's name."

"What girl, my lord?"

"Inuyasha's call girl," Sesshomaru replied with a contemptuous smile. "And I can use the girl he loves to destroy him. That Kagome Higurashi."

…

"What the hell do you mean, _he_ found out?!"

Reaching over the table, Inuyasha grabbed Miroku's collar and lifted him from his seat. All around the bar people stared, girls in awestruck appreciation of the two handsome men in front of them, and everyone else gaped in shock as Inuyasha's expression inched closer and closer to bloodlust. It looked like he was ready to rip out Miroku's throat and he didn't care if he did it publicly. Miroku looked around at the frightened onlookers and waved dismissively. He had hoped that taking Inuyasha to a public place would help him avoid a scene and then, maybe, keep _him_ from almost getting killed by the wild-tempered young man.

Inuyasha tightened his fists around Miroku's shirt, his teeth clenched in a predatory snarl, and his amber eyes almost radiated palpable heat from his pure, seething outrage. Miroku wondered if he had ever seen Inuyasha so angry. "How would Sesshomaru know?" Inuyasha hissed into Miroku's face.

Miroku tried to pry Inuyasha's fierce grip off of him. "Hey— just— calm down, Inuyasha, there are women here…!"

His face still bordering on murderous, Inuyasha dropped Miroku with such abruptness and force into his seat that the young man almost fell out of his chair and right onto the ground. Everyone in the bar continued to watch the scene. "Just so you know, I wasn't the one who told him," Miroku complained, trying to maintain his balance. He clutched the edge of the table. Well, Miroku thought, he hadn't told Sesshomaru everything. "He knew about it before he asked me. He just wanted to know what I knew about Shikon Jewel."

The customers in the bar murmured and pointed at the two men, and Inuyasha glared at them, sending them scurrying away. With a frustrated click of his tongue, Inuyasha gradually dug his hands into his pockets and sank into his seat. Miroku let out a sigh of relief.

"The last person I wanted to know…" Inuyasha said angrily.

"Why didn't I know, by the way?" Miroku said wryly. "No need to thank me, you know, for introducing you to your lovely girlfriend's workplace."

"Next time you get drunk and molest prostitutes, I'll try to remember to show my gratitude," Inuyasha replied through gritted teeth.

"So?"

"So 'what'?"

Miroku raised his glass to his lips and downed his beer. "Who is she then? The famous whore?"

"Don't you dare call her that."

"Okay, then. What should I call her? The lovely prostitute? The illustrious call-girl? Your beloved slut?—"

Inuyasha pounded his beer-glass so hard onto the table that Miroku almost thought he could hear the glass cracking.

"Well, that's what she is," Miroku argued and shrugged his shoulders, "unless I'm thinking about the wrong Shikon Jewel."

"She doesn't have a choice," Inuyasha said, and his eyes turned to the floor with not only anger in their golden depths, but something like pain, something hard like bitterness. Miroku was surprised— never had he seen so complex and almost miserable an expression on his friend's face. "She needs the money, and right now she can't get it any other way. It's not like she wants to. She's not that kind of girl."

"Wow. You've really fallen hard, haven't you?" Miroku laughed.

Inuyasha glowered at him, his silvery bangs falling like streaks of violent, blinding light into his face. "It's not like you're doing much better with Sango Ryoushi."

"I'm working on it," Miroku said easily, though he felt the familiar weight of dread settle onto his shoulders. "Anyways, I've got a deal with Sesshomaru—"

Realizing his mistake, Miroku clamped a hand over his mouth, but Inuyasha had already risen from his seat, and the look he was throwing at Miroku little less than utter loathing and the desire to kill.

"You piece of shit," he hissed, and Miroku pushed himself ever so slightly away from the table. "You did rat me out, and to that freaking son of a bitch!—"

"I can feel the brotherly love," Miroku remarked sarcastically, and Inuyasha leapt at him with all too eager and all too furious hands. Miroku flung himself away from Inuyasha's grasp, and cried, "Whoa, wait, wait, it's not like I told him anything more than he could have learned on his own. You're the one who should've been more careful not to get seen."

"I'll kill you, goddammit—"

"Look, if you really want to rid of Sesshomaru, you know what you have to do, right?" Miroku sighed, and Inuyasha stared at him, seething and undauntedly, and his hands eventually fell to his sides. "Just give him what he wants. Give up your claim over your Dad's money. It's not like you want it anyway, at least not the way you complain about it—"

"I can't do that," Inuyasha answered in a strained voice, and he collapsed back in his seat exhaustedly, his white-blonde hair falling into his face. "I don't need the empire, but…I need the money."

"Why now?" Miroku said in exasperation, pushing his hands through his dark hair. "Just a week ago you wouldn't stop talking about what a pain it was. Why the hell does the inheritance matter now?"

"Things have…changed," Inuyasha answered just as curtly and just as reluctantly, as before. Miroku crossed his arms and Inuyasha gave him a glare. Miroku knew it would be hopeless trying to get anything out from Inuyasha when he was this riled up.

"Fine, then. Don't tell me," Miroku answered in an expired breath.

Inuyasha narrowed his golden eyes, and replied, "I won't," before hoisting himself up from his seat. Inuyasha carelessly threw on his coat and walked out the bar, saying, "Another word to Sesshomaru, Miroku, and I'll snap your neck."

"Yeah, yeah," Miroku muttered.

Inuyasha put his foot in the door. Throwing back his light head, he added in a low voice, "and I'll make sure Ookami empire never has anything to do with the Ryoushi Corporation. Not that you have a chance in hell with Sango, anyway."

"Thanks, you're such a good friend," Miroku muttered drily and sipped on his drink as Inuyasha stomped out of the bar.

…

"Well, well, look who's here," Kagura said with a smile. "And here I thought you were too…_great_ to step in such a place as this."

"I didn't finish my business here, last time," Sesshomaru said in cold tones. All around him the working girls continued to stare, spell-bound by his handsome, composed face, his cool demeanor, and his very eminent presence. He was such a contrast to this dingy, dirty brothel with faded walls and peeling paint. If it had been his choice, Sesshomaru would have never stepped in that sinkhole in his life.

"Back to work, ladies," Kagura shouted at the girls who continued to stare at Sesshomaru. The girls jumped, awoken from their reveries, and flustered, blushing, they returned to their customers and waiting tables. Kagura gave Sesshomaru an appraising eye. "Well, I do have to admit, you are a looker. A guy with looks and money like you shouldn't need to visit a place like ours, with all the gold-diggers and fans I'm sure the eldest son of the Ookami empire gets."

"I'm not here for a girl. I'm looking for the prostitute my brother visits."

"Ooh, a love triangle?" Kagura laughed mockingly and waved her fan in her beautiful face. "Or is it just a little brotherly competition? Look. Your dysfunctional family is none of my business, Mr. Ookami. My only business is running my business, _this_ business, and I won't let you run it into the ground by stalking one of my employees."

Sesshomaru didn't move an inch and turned the business card in his long fingers, the word Shikon Jewel flashing in glossy, blaring letters from the heavy paper. "And I'm sure that you're business isn't strictly speaking…legal, at least not with that child working here. It wouldn't be hard to destroy it completely."

"Are you threatening me?" Kagura hissed.

"Not threatening," Sesshomaru answered coldly. "Persuading. You let me see this Kagome Higurashi, and I'll let you run your business to the ground by yourself."

"This is why you're in a brothel. I'm sure that charming attitude works wonders on your high-class women." Kagura smirked. "Sadly, though, I'm afraid I'll have to inform you that Miss Higurashi is not working today. She took the day off, and no matter how much you threaten me, I'm afraid I can't tell you her address or personal information."

Sesshomaru glared at the woman and she responded with the most simpering, beautiful, and demeaning of smiles.

"Hey, watch out, you brat!" A harsh cry echoed through the small brothel.

There was the sound of glass breaking, and whipping his white-silver head around the dark building, Sesshomaru saw two men, red in their ugly faces and completely drunk, huddling together. The hostesses beside them muttered and cast each other concerned looks. Before them stood a small girl dressed in a bright red and over-sized kimono. Broken glass shone like diamonds as it was littered in fragments across the grimy floor by the little girl's feet.

"Look what you did, you little whelp," one of the men said and grabbed his shirt-front, now dark and sopping wet. "You spilt my drink!" The drunkard barked. As he got to his feet, the glass crackled and was ground to dust under the soles of his shoes and his sheer, immense weight.

Looking at the red, bloated faces of the wasted men, Rin turned to the glass on the floor. She didn't whimper, she didn't shake— she merely stood, completely immobile, as holed in as a creature in its shell.

"Well?" One of the drunken men shouted. He pointed to the broken remnants of the wine-glass shattered on the ground. "Are you gonna pick it up nor not, you frickin' twerp?"

Her head lowered, her back turned away to Sesshomaru and her face out of his sight, Rin got onto her knees and began to sweep the shards of glass into her hands with the long sleeve of her kimono.

Sesshomaru watched, speechless, rigid, and unable to tear himself away. The words rang through his head, cold commands, his eyes fixed on the little girl's back. Run. Shout. Fight. Rise. Don't let those bastards walk all over you.

"What the hell?" the men laughed and Rin fumbled over the glass; Sesshomaru watched a drop of blood fall on the floor and knew that she cut herself on the shards. Rin continued to stoop over the shards of glass and gather them in her tiny, cut hands. Smiling, a drunkard prodded Rin's bowed head with his foot. "You're so goddamned useless!" he shouted, and raising his leg, he kicked at Rin straight in the face and sent her flying across the brothel.

The working girls shouted with fear. Kagura's dark eyes fixed like black daggers on the two, oaf-like men.

Sesshomaru felt his blood boil.

"Gentlemen, I'm afraid we don't allow things like this in our establishment," Kagura said smoothly, her eyes flashing, as she glided over to the men.

The drunken men turned from Rin, who lay sprawled on the floor, to Kagura, sizing her up. They chuckled obscenely, and the drunkard who kicked Rin croaked, "We bought these girls, didn't we? Don't you remember us giving you that cash?"

"This girl is not a hostess. She's just a worker, and I'm afraid that we can't permit this kind of behavior in our shop."

"Why not?" One of the drunken men said, and he grabbed Rin's face, hauling her from the ground. "She'll make a decent whore soon enough."

The man laughed into Rin's face, his mouth too close, his hands too tight on her skin, and not thinking about saving Rin, not thinking about helping the girl, Sesshomaru walked calmly over to the scene. All he could see was the filthy men in his sights. Insignificant. Breakable.

"Hey, what's your deal, pretty boy?" The drunken man stammered at Sesshomaru, still holding Rin's face tight in his grotesque palms. He slammed his hand onto the table, and Rin dropped onto the ground, her hands still bleeding with the broken cup and glass she held like a lifeline in her fingers. "You wanna get a taste of the little wench, too?"

Rin looked at Sesshomaru, and he finally got a good look of her face, that once smiling face, so innocent, now bruised, blood forming from her cut lip. Sesshomaru held out his hand to the girl.

"Give that to me," Sesshomaru commanded.

The drunkard reeled, his hands flat on the table. "What?"

Rin watched Sesshomaru's gold eyes in confusion. Then she noticed her bleeding hands. Examining the broken, bloody shards of glass in her dirty fingers, Rin looked at Sesshomaru and returned his cool gaze. She raised her open palms, cut, bleeding, and full of shining fragments of glass, to him.

"Good girl," said Sesshomaru, and picking up the broken wine glass by its handle, he raised his arm, swiftly, precisely, his gold eyes fixed on the horrified drunkard's face as he stabbed the shattered glass into his hand.

The drunkard screamed, his hand pinned to the table and oozing dark blood, as Sesshomaru dug the broken glass, hard and ruthlessly, into his hand. He heard the man scream and cry, and a cold smile almost broke over his lips. Feeling the satisfying wrench of pierced flesh as he twisted the knife-sharp glass into the man's hand, Sesshomaru finally ripped the glass away, sending droplets of blood flying into the air. The man screamed, and Sesshomaru glared at the two drunkards. He was poised and prepared to kill. The men ran, shuddering, tripping out of the brothel.

Rin watched Sesshomaru in awe, and her bloody, battered face lit up with a smile, the same unforgettable smile as the other day.

"You should be more selective about your clientele," Sesshomaru told Kagura icily as he dropped the bloody glass into her hands.

Kagura glared at him and threw the broken glass onto the table. "Well, what are you waiting for?" She barked at the work-girls staring in both fear and admiration at their silver-haired savior. "Get this place cleaned up already!"

The girls fluttered away, and her face still contorted with rage, Kagura said, "I'm not going to thank you. Because of you, I've probably lost two of my customers. That's less money for this shop."

"They were beating your employee," Sesshomaru hissed contemptuously. Those goddamned oafs were beating her, that bright, sincere young girl. They were beating Rin. They had no right.

"It's only with this money that I can keep this place up and keep Rin sheltered," Kagura replied as she put a hand on her hip and frowned. "Like it or not, we tend to customers, customers like those guys, all customers, so that I can protect Rin. I need the money."

It was blood money, Sesshomaru thought coldly, his knowledge stemming from his long experience in dealing in those forbidden bills. It was how he made his father's wealth, procured his future empire— it was how he lived with sheets of bleeding, indelible red.

"Some of us aren't born as lucky as you were, Mr. Ookami. We have to get by with what we've got. Not that it's any of your damned business." Kagura raised a curt hand. "Rin. Come on. Clean yourself up."

Rin looked at Kagura, wiping her bloody nose and lip on her sleeve. Then she found Sesshomaru with her dark, unwavering eyes. "Thank you," she said in a small voice. She inclined her dark head. "Lord Ookami."

Kagura looked in shock at the talking, communicative Rin. Sesshomaru watched the girl's dark eyes. It was an expression of compassion and gratitude he had never witnessed before. Then, before he could stop them, the words just escaped Sesshomaru's lips. "It's Sesshomaru," he said simply.

Rin smiled in sheer delight, and her dark eyes lit up. Kagura looked more surprised than ever. Rin, smiling? That miserable girl?

"Lord Sesshomaru," said Rin excitedly, trying the name out on her tongue, and she nodded her head energetically like a happy puppy, saying, "thank you, Lord Sesshomaru!" before she ran back into the dark depths of the brothel.

Kagura looked at the empty place where the girl once stood and then at Sesshomaru with wide eyes and in complete and utter astonishment. "But Rin," she said uncertainly, her eyes wide, her lip-sticked mouth parted vainly, "Rin…she barely ever speaks. Not after her mother died. Why…?"

"I punished the men who assaulted her. It's just gratitude, nothing more," Sesshomaru said coldly, scathingly. Yes, he tried to convince himself, he just saved her out of pity for this poor, pathetic girl, out of disgust for those cockroaches of men— nothing more— it wasn't his business— he didn't care about anything, anyone, and he didn't need to—

He didn't want to care, and certainly not for this sad girl. He cared for no one. Only himself.

Then why did those thoughts seem so forced now?

* * *

_Okay, so that's the second chapter, and in the next one we'll be getting more into Kagome, Naraku and Sango. I'll try and get it out next week!_


	3. Chapter 3: Intersections

_Okay, so here's the third chapter. Sorry if it's going a little slow, I like to take a while to develop stuff with my pacing, but we'll be getting to the good stuff soon (hopefully...!) Thanks for reading!_

* * *

3.

When Rin closed her eyes, she was brought back to the image of that silver-haired man. Her savior with long and white-bright tresses and eyes of stunning topaz. The one who had come to her rescue. The one who had destroyed those two drunkards when she couldn't save herself and no one else would bother to save her.

Sesshomaru was all Rin could think about. The low whisper of his voice. Even the blood that was beautiful at least on his alabaster skin. Her protector.

She thought about the touch of his hand as she gave him the shards of glass laced in the darkest drops and trickles of crimson.

She felt the strangest sensation on her face, a slight pain and throb of her jaw. Then she realized she was smiling. Ever since she had met Sesshomaru, she had smiled more than she could have imagined her entire life.

…

"What the hell is that guy's problem?" Kagura stabbed her cigarette into an ashtray, listening to it hiss, wrapped in feeble coils of lingering smoke. Rin noticed the ring of red lipstick around the end of the cigarette butt. "He's got a little power in his wallet, and he thinks he's the fucking king of the world!"

Rin said nothing, trying not to scratch at the bandages plastered to her cheek. They itched. She licked the cut in her lip.

"I make money the way I can— I mean, I may not be the actual owner of this place, but I keep it going strong! We have a lot of business. The younger Ookami is still willing to pay for our services."

Rin played with the ends of her hair and Kagura stared at her.

"And you!" the woman said, jabbing a red-nailed finger at Rin. Rin jumped on the dusty floor. "Why the hell do you talk to him, of all people? You barely talk at all. You were practically mute a year ago, and now you're blabbing away to this son of a bitch?" Kagura pulled another cigarette out of her pocket and pursed it between her crimson lips, feeding the end of the cigarette with a lighter. It was the words Shikon Jewel embossed on it in lurid pink. "Everybody's ungrateful."

Rin said meekly, "I'm grateful, Mistress Kagura—" but Kagura slammed her fist on the table with such force that the girl's words were drowned out.

"And where is Kagome Higurashi? When is she getting back?" Kagura put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. "Both of my employees are so troublesome…!"

…

It wasn't the pain that Sesshomaru thought about. He couldn't feel the wet warmth of blood oozing through his clothes as he shoved his hand into his pocket, much less the pain of the cuts in his hand. Was it from the broken glass? Sesshomaru scowled. He wasn't usually this careless. But that was before he met her. That young, bright girl. Rin.

He saw her in her bright dress as lurid and red as the skin of an apple, and then those filthy bastards had dared to lay their grimy hands on her. They had dared to touch her. Sesshomaru just barely caught them beating Rin, and the vision of her warm smile flashed through his eyes, and before he knew it all he could feel was hatred so deep and deafening that he wouldn't have minded ending the lives of those drunkards there and then. He would have welcomed it with a cold smile if it meant mending Rin's wounds and kindling that bright smile back on her face.

For one absurd and undeniable moment, Sesshomaru knew that it didn't matter what man he had to punish or what pain he would incur if it meant preserving Rin's smile. Protecting her. Defending her from everything. Sesshomaru would have endured the weight of the world.

Since when did a heart feel so heavy? When did getting a heart to form in your empty chest have such sweet and irrepressible pain?

This is why he didn't want to care about anyone before.

Before Rin.

…

"Lord Sesshomaru! Y-y-your hand…!"

Jaken was standing at the door of the penthouse apartment, staring in complete horror as Sesshomaru stepped past him and threw his coat on the couch. Sesshomaru looked at his hand, now dripping with beads of blood. Jaken's face went pale and he caught himself on his cane.

"W-whoever dared to such a thing to my lord will face the wrath of Jaken! I won't let them get away with this atrocity—"

"Do you really think I'd let someone do something like this to me?" Sesshomaru hissed and examined his bloody hand. The cuts were insignificant, the blood was sparse, and he was used to dealing with small pains. How else would he deal with his wretched brother? For one thoughtless but heartfelt moment, he believed it was okay to suffer this much, to spill these few drops of shining blood, if it meant protecting Rin.

"O-of course not, my lord, I just meant that I would never let any ill before you! Whoever dares oppose my lord will face a horrific end!"

"I did this to myself," Sesshomaru replied coolly and unhooked his tie. He wrapped the expensive fabric around his bleeding hand, and dark liquid oozed through the silken tie. Sesshomaru glared at his ineffectual body, willing the blood to stop. This would be a bigger pain than he thought, and all for a little girl, a pathetic, soon-to-be prostitute—

He didn't want to think about that right now. Turning on his heel, Sesshomaru grabbed his jacket and flung it over his shoulder, saying swiftly, "come, Jaken."

"Where to, my lord?" Jaken piped up.

"To get this taken care of," said Sesshomaru and beckoned with his bloody hand. At least at the hospital, he could take care of some unfinished business, as well.

…

Like most weekends, Sango Ryoushi was in the hospital funded by her father and waiting apprehensively outside the door of a certain room. The doctor was examining her brother's lungs. He had been ill ever since he was a child, and with his busy schedule helping out his father with his business and school, his asthma had only gotten worse. One day Sango had come home to find his sprawled on the floor, his breathing shallow and raspy, and she could feel her heart pounding in her throat. She was the best thing her brother had ever since their mother left their father for another man.

That was why Sango hated philanderers, and especially Miroku Shinjin.

"Now's not the time!" Sango scolded herself. She shouldn't be thinking about that man when her brother needed all her care and her attention. When she looked into the window of the curtained room, she saw her reflection and her red and fiercely blushing face in the clear glass. She put a hand to her face, horrified.

"It's just physiological! Anybody would react if some guy touched them like that," Sango told herself and slapped her red face, using, as she always did, a little too much force. Her cheek stung with crimson fingerprints, and Sango couldn't escape the concern of how hard she had slapped Miroku when she last saw him. When he ran his hand down her skirt. On her butt.

Apparently, she hadn't hit him hard enough.

"Um, miss?"

Sango whipped around. The nurse was watching her nervously and looking at her red, throbbing face. Sango raised a hand to cover her face too quickly and she felt the sting of her slap again. She hated how that man always managed to rile her up.

"You can come in now," the nurse said, and Sango rushed into the room to find the dark-haired doctor checking his clipboard and Kohaku buttoning up his shirt.

"Well, how is he doing? Is his asthma getting worse?" Sango asked, her dark ponytail flicking over her shoulder.

"Sis, I'm fine—" Kohaku answered hurriedly.

"You needn't be so worried, Ms. Ryoushi," the doctor cut in, his dark hair falling in long, straggly strands like dripping ink down his white coat. "Kohaku is doing a lot better since the last time I saw him. As long as he doesn't push himself too hard in sports or school, he should be fine."

Sango sighed and she felt the relief spread through her. At least one good thing was happening recently.

"Thank you so much, Dr. Onigumo."

The dark-haired doctor grabbed his glasses from his face and tucked them onto the breast pocket, smiling ever so slightly, his eyes flashing. "It's my pleasure," said Naraku Onigumo in his low voice. "If you'll excuse me."

His white coat sweeping around him like the immense wings of a hawk, predatory, calculating, Naraku stepped out of the room. As he walked out through the doorway, Naraku watched a man with long, silver-white hair and an expression of sheer indifference enter the room. Sesshomaru saw Naraku watching him and glared at the dark man. Naraku smiled maliciously.

"Mr. Ookami?" Sango said in confusion as she watched Sesshomaru glide into the room, his white-blonde hair rippling on his shoulders. Kohaku stared at the stranger. "It is Sesshomaru Ookami, isn't it? What are you doing here? How… did you find this room?"

"I asked," Sesshomaru responded smoothly. One of the privileges of his stature was that when someone like him demanded something, he got it, no questions asked. It was uncommon that anyone failed to recognize the famous Sesshomaru Ookami in all his wealth, prestige, glamor, and reputation, and even more rarely were his commands answered with defiance. Well, not considering that brothel, Shikon Jewel. "I'm here on behalf of a…colleague. I believe you know Miroku Shinjin."

Sango's face went red with rage. Yes, she definitely knew him. Her body and open palm knew him very well.

"Sango?" Kohaku said uncertainly, catching sight of his sister's face contorted and flushed with anger.

Remembering herself, Sango touched her brother's shoulder and said quietly, "Kohaku, wait in here for a moment, okay? I just need to talk _business_ with Mr. Ookami."

Before Kohaku could protest Sango marched out of the room with Sesshomaru following her idly. It was all she could do to cross her arms and keep her violent hands from reacting. "Why do you ask about that guy, Mr. Ookami? I hope you're not in league with that lech."

"I just need you to meet with him."

"Like hell I'd meet with that man! He's an addicted molester! There's no reason for us to meet and talk civilly with him running his hands all over my body."

Sesshomaru sighed. That damned Miroku, making him deal with this. "He might not be rich, but at least the man has a building career. That should be enough."

"Oh, yes, it'll be just like a dream! Me and my rich husband building our business while mistresses come in and out of the house." Sango laughed bitterly and threw her long, dark whip of hair into the air. "I've had enough with adulterers and cheaters, Mr. Ookami. That's the very reason my father is alone and my brother doesn't have a mother. I don't feel like dealing with that again." Sango tightened her nails in her folded arms and she threw Sesshomaru a dark look. "And from what I heard, you should have had your fill of them, too. Isn't that why your mother left your father? Because of your cheating father's mistress and illegitimate son?"

Before Sesshomaru could reply, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A flash of dark, wavy hair, a pair of hazel eyes. The girl in the photograph. Kagome Higurashi, that girl, that prostitute belonged to his damned half-brother, to—

"Inuyasha."

"What?"

Sesshomaru walked right past Sango and he swept through the crowd of doctors, patients, and visitors, watching the back of the dark-haired girl turn around the corner.

"What the hell?" said Sango as she watched the man disappear, and then she saw something glimmer from the floor like a ruby. Crouching down, she scooped the card delicately up in her fingers, reading the words Shikon Jewel.

…

Rin was sitting in the kitchen, emptying half-full wine glasses and scrubbing them clean when she thought about the white-haired man. Never had she seen someone so proud, so perfect in this place. Everybody here was just dark and dingy, from the prostitutes that dressed in blaring red and the men who prowled the brothel with open, groping hands and filthy smiles.

She had never seen somebody so commanding of awe.

Kagome was nice. She was one of the only people who was, and on days she wasn't working she's help Rin clean the dirty dishes and wash the floors even if it meant getting on her hands and knees. Rin could tell, though, that Kagome was suffering in that place from the sad, distant look she sometimes had in her eyes in the monotone of her voice. Then, one day, she saw the bruises on her back like filthy, black hand prints, dark and merciless.

"Don't worry about it, Rin," Kagome had said in a fluster when the girl had asked. She pulled her clothes tightly over herself, but it looked more to Rin like she was holding herself together and trying to keep from falling apart. "It's something I need to do."

Kagome was kind. But then there was her savior— silver-haired, cold, and powerful Sesshomaru. One of the only people who had actually tried to save her, even bleeding for her. Lately she could think of no one else. She wanted to see him again. She wanted to help him, somehow, to pay him back. He was the only person who had ever tried to help her.

Rin thought about Sesshomaru, the kind, proud Sesshomaru— and then she remembered something. The photo. Kagome.

The thoughts turning through her head and keeping her legs pushing forward, Rin decided that she could help Sesshomaru, her savior, her helper— she just needed to find him.

…

Kagome Higurashi was right in front of him, and Sesshomaru could not get to her.

Maybe it was just his limited experience of hospitals or the unusual amount of people in the white walls today, but the hospital was just too goddamned full. Sesshomaru followed her through the linoleum-tiled hallways, never shifting his golden gaze from her head of dark, thick hair. The doctors filled the halls and the nurses flocked around him with carts.

As Kagome turned another corner, Sesshomaru quickened his pace and shoved through the suffocating amount of people in the narrow hallways. He was so close, so close to getting to her, getting back at his brother— Kagome walked over to an elevator—

"Ahh!"

A nurse ran right into Sesshomaru, and in a clatter of noise and commotion her cart spilled onto the floor and she fell onto the ground. The nurse struggled to get to her feet, and Sesshomaru, glaring, tried to step around the supplies and tools scattered across the floor.

"Wait, please," the nurse cried, and blushing, she grabbed Sesshomaru's sleeve.

"I don't have time for this," Sesshomaru said icily, and when he ripped himself away from the nurse, Kagome Higurashi was gone and the elevator doors were closed. He had no idea where she'd gone.

"Damn it."

Where was that damned girl, where, where?— Sesshomaru whipped around, his argent hair falling in his face, and he raced through the down the stairs and through the halls. His blood was roiling. He had been so close—

Then he walked straight into another doctor. Sesshomaru backed away from the man, cursing the ridiculous amount of people packed in this one hospital. Weren't there any other hospitals in the city?

"I'm so sorry," the dark-haired man said, and Sesshomaru recognized him— he was the same doctor who had watched him when he talked to Sango. His name tag read Dr. Onigumo. Naraku smiled. "You're…Sesshomaru Ookami, aren't you? You're rather famous."

Sesshomaru said nothing and prepared to walk away. He didn't have time to deal with this guy.

"You don't look like a patient. Are you looking for someone?" Naraku smiled. "Visiting, perhaps? I'd be more than happy to help."

Sesshomaru had no idea what that girl had been doing in this place or if she even was a patient. He didn't even know why the hell that girl was in this place. He didn't care. But now he'd lost her, for God's sake, and he was getting nowhere with that brothel and Kagura. "Only if you know a Kagome Higurashi."

Naraku's eyes flashed and his grip of his clipboard tightened. Noticing the sudden change in demeanor, Sesshomaru glared at the man, walking closer to him.

"Higurashi?" Naraku said in a still, wondering voice. He caught Sesshomaru's eye. He smiled, but to Sesshomaru it looked more like a smirk. "I'm afraid not."

Inclining his head as Sesshomaru watched him warily, Naraku proceeded through the halls, saying icily, "if you'll excuse me," and then he disappeared from sight.

…

"Inuyasha!"

Oblivious to young Sota and Kaede playing around Inuyasha's feet, Kagome hurled herself straight into the young man's arms, pressing her face into his shoulder. She felt the relief course through her like a sedative. All the kids in the park, including Sota and Kaede, stared.

"Kagome?" Inuyasha said, confused, and he held Kagome awkwardly in his arms. He felt a tug on his jeans, and Inuyasha found Sota staring at him and whispering behind a cupped hand, "We're in public." The little boy gestured to the kids playing in the park that were looking at the spectacle of him and Kagome mid-embrace as their mothers tried to coax them away while staring themselves.

Blushing furiously, Inuyasha grabbed Kagome's shoulders and pushed her away. "Um, maybe not right now, Kagome."

"What…?" Kagome said, and Inuyasha pointed to the little kids at his feet. Sota and Kaede waved at Kagome, and realizing the children were there, Kagome's face went crimson. "Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry. Thanks for keeping an eye on Sota and Kaede for me, too, Inuyasha."

"It was no problem," Sota answered in Inuyasha's place, and Inuyasha ruffled his hair violently. Kaede sighed at her brother and then grabbed Kagome's hand.

"Where did you go? You said _you_ would take us out today."

"I'm so sorry, Kaede," Kagome said coyly, and kneeling down into the woodchips, she petted her sister's ebony hair. "I had to go to the hospital."

Sota and Kaede looked uncertainly at their sister.

"So you still keep going, then?" said Inuyasha. In his golden eyes, the golden eyes she loved so much, Kagome could see his concern, his sadness, his reluctance— he always felt for her whenever Kagome talked about the hospital or forced herself to go inside.

"Yeah." Kagome wound a hand in her hair and sat down beside Inuyasha on the bench as Kaede sidled into her lap. It wasn't a scar— it was more like a wound that never closed, constantly throbbing, aching so much she could barely think or breath, and staining her clothes is blood. In sadness. In guilt. Kagome leaned against Inuyasha and laid her head on his shoulder. He didn't pull away.

"You don't have to keep doing this to yourself, Kagome," Inuyasha said softly into her ear, touching her hand. "I will protect you. You don't have to force yourself to do this anymore. When I get the inheritance in a year, you won't have to deal with the hospital or that damned Shikon Jewel anymore."

"I'm not sure if I can last a year," Kagome replied in a whisper, smiling miserably. Inuyasha wound his fingers through hers and pressed her hand comfortingly.

"You shouldn't worry about that place. I will take care of you. Don't go to the hospital too much anymore, okay?"

"You're not jealous, are you?" Kagome said, laughing, and Inuyasha pushed her head off his shoulder. Kagome cried out, and Kaede came to Kagome's rescue and pulled on Inuyasha's leg while Sota came to Inuyasha's aid and pulled Kaede's dress. The other people in the park stared and tried to focus on their own business.

"I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding! Don't worry about it," Kagome laughed.

"Maybe I am."

"What?" Kagome looked at Inuyasha.

Inuyasha stared at her with those gold eyes so intense and riveting, and he said in a low voice, "Maybe I am jealous." He tightened his grip on Kagome's hand and Kagome could feel her heart pounding, his eyes on her, and her face went red. Seeing her blushing, Inuyasha couldn't help himself and laughed.

"Y-you—!" Kagome exclaimed as Inuyasha doubled over in laughter. "You're horrible!" Kagome tore herself away and grabbed Sota and Kaede, shouting, "Come on you two, we're going home! Inuyasha is a bad role model!"

"Hey, wait, Kagome, I'm sorry, okay?" Inuyasha gasped between laughs, and he watched Kagome march away, dragging her two younger siblings behind her. Even when she was angry she was so damned gorgeous. How could she be so beautiful storming away?

Seeing her furious with him beat seeing her so close to tears. She always seemed like that nowadays, drowning and distant in her misery, pulling away from him, plagued by some worry—

"I'm not gonna let that goddamned Sesshomaru fuck this up," Inuyasha said to himself. He knew that even if he mentioned it to Kagome, there was nothing she could do, and he didn't want to make her more worried than she already was. He'd kill just to see her smile again, really smile, radiant with joy.

If Sesshomaru was going to try and ruin their relationship, he wouldn't let his brother get close. He wouldn't let him hurt Kagome, push her off the edge of her already insurmountable troubles.

Inuyasha would just have to deal with Sesshomaru himself using whatever means necessary.

…

Sesshomaru sat against the leather upholstery of his limousine, his fingers interwoven, thinking. That man, that Onigumo, had known something. He was sure of it.

"That insect," Sesshomaru said. That Onigumo had said something, and he'd just let him scuttle away, away from his grip, like a spider. He had let his wealth slip away from him that easily.

"That's enough," Sesshomaru announced coldly.

"My lord?" Jaken said from the front seat.

"Take me to my father's mansion. Now."

"But, my lord, you just got those stitches in your hand—"

"Jaken," Sesshomaru said, and his topaz eyes were ablaze.

"O-Of course, my Lord!" Jaken shouted a little too loudly and he turned into the left lane, completely ignoring the cars right next to him in the other lanes.

As the limousine pulled into the drive, Sesshomaru sleekly glided out of the car, his stitched hand in his pocket. He wasn't going to let this farce go on anymore, be it his goddamned elusive father or his annoying half-brother. He was going to destroy the ground right under Inuyasha's feet.

"My Lord, may I ask what it is you want to do—" Jaken said nervously, but Sesshomaru turned his back to him.

"Go back to the penthouse, Jaken. I'll call you when I need a ride back." Sesshomaru envisioned his brother's face with the same gold eyes and white hair, and he felt the hatred surge inside him. "This may take a while."

Feeling the pure loathing radiating from Sesshomaru like poisonous gas, Jaken squeaked, "Of course, my lord!" and jerkily drove away.

…

"You filthy girl."

Naraku wound his hands into Kagome's dark hair, wrenching her up from the floor, her eye swollen and purple. Kagome tried to struggle and fight the man away, but he threw himself at her, catching her wrists in one hand and grabbing her face with his free hand. He breathed in her face.

After Kagome had led her siblings back to their apartment, she crept out as she always did, donning the tempting make-up, the brazen, skin-tight clothes, the smile she was forced to wear like a siren's song. She found herself back in the Shikon Jewel, pushing through the crimson doors and trying to fight the impulse to run away, as far away as she could, with all her heart, with all her breath. To safety. To Inuyasha.

Then, she reminded herself, it was something she needed to do, and she had gone to the hospital today to remind herself that it was her burden to carry and her price to repay. Maybe she'd never been forgiven, not by Inuyasha, not by the most important person, but she had to try to get that money if she could. Those disgusting bills, tainted in the stain of her own undoing, her own guilt. Holding the thought and feelings deep, aching, beating like a fist against her chest, Kagome braced herself and found Naraku waiting for her with his usually handsome face livid and he'd grabbed her before she could even react.

Naraku tugged at Kagome's hair again, feeling the satisfying wrench in his fingers. "Who is this Ookami?"

Kagome felt her heart stop. Naraku glared at her, his mouth moving against her taut neck, biting her collarbone, pressed to her chest. He squeezed her wrists. Kagome didn't even feel the pain through her shock.

"O-Ookami…?" she gasped, her heart beating a storm in her head. She couldn't think clearly. One word just went through her head. _No._

"Sesshomaru Ookami. What does he have to do with you?"

Kagome tried not to let out a sigh of relief. It wasn't Inuyasha. He didn't know about Inuyasha.

"I don't know who he is," Kagome said, and it was true. Inuyasha had only complained about his brother, but she had never met him.

"Then why was he looking for you?" Naraku hissed, squeezing Kagome's face. Kagome felt her jaw go numb.

"I don't know…" Kagome said. She felt the concern come back. Did Inuyasha's brother know about them? Did Inuyasha know about Sesshomaru?

Naraku watched Kagome's resilient expression for a moment, and then he slackened his grip on her, letting her slide to the floor.

"Fine," he said, and he smiled. "If you won't talk—" Before Kagome could protest, Naraku grabbed her by the collar of her shirt. He crouched on top of her like a spider winding his prey into a bind from which he could never free himself, no matter how he struggled. Naraku pressed the sides of her face so hard that Kagome feel his nails digging into her skin. She could feel the pain, the pressure. "Then I'll make you scream."

…

"How could I possibly leave Lord Sesshomaru like that? It is my job to serve him!" Jaken grumbled as he waited in the elevator, tapping his small foot on the floor.

"What Lord Inutaisho must think," Jaken lamented. If only that damned Inuyasha didn't mess everything up, ever since his disastrous birth—

"How dare he try and steal what rightfully belongs to my lord!" Jaken cried, and as the elevator rocked to a stop, he stepped out and halted, staring, blank-faced, at the girl standing in front of the penthouse.

The girl didn't even notice Jaken, and she waited, staring, at the tall door. Who the hell was she? She was dressed in the most ridiculous, outlandish kimono, and her dark hair was a mess. She looked like some bizarre cosplayer. As she stood before the door, a soft smile lit up her cream-colored face and she hummed a tune to herself with no more sound or weight than a wing-beat.

"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing, girl?" Jaken said and pounced in front of the girl.

The moment Jaken landed before the girl, she blinked, staring at him with the fascination of one who had come upon a strange creature. Then she smiled.

"Hello. I'm looking for Lord Sesshomaru," she said in a light voice.

"Lord Sesshomaru doesn't receive visitors of your sort. Get lost! Go home to your mommy."

"I don't have a mom," Rin said simply, still watching Jaken with some astonishment. It was like looking at an exotic animal in the zoo.

"Well, I don't have time to listen to your sob story!" Jaken mumbled and beat his cane on the floor, with what he hoped was significance. "Neither does Lord Sesshomaru! He's a very busy, very important man, much too important to deal with you— so go back to whatever hole you crawled out from."

Folding her arms, Rin rooted herself to the floor. "No, not until I can see Lord Sesshomaru!"

"I already told you, you infernal whelp, you can't see him!—"

"But I'm here to help him!" Rin cried, and she picked up a photo of a dark-haired girl, saying, "I'm here to help him find Kagome."

* * *

_Okay, so now we're getting to Kagome's secrets and Naraku's double-life. And Rin's finally gotten to Sesshomaru's place and is about to invade his entire life (sorry there wasn't much interaction between the two this chapter, but there will be a lot of it in the next one!) Thanks for being patient with me and please continue to support my work and review! _


	4. Chapter 4: The unloved

_Okay, so here's the next chapter after a couple revelations in the last chapter. This one will feature more with Sesshomaru and Rin! Please read and review! _

* * *

4.

As Jaken pulled away from the gravel driveway, the pebbles and rock crackling under the tires of his limousine, Sesshomaru tried to compose himself and walked up the steps of the porch and right in front of the vast, heavy doors of the Ookami mansion. His golden eyes flicked across the dark and polished wood of the expensive house. He tried to contain the anger that grew so violently within him that it even made him sick with it. This place he hated with all his heartlessness, the dark house embodying the failure of his father and his pathetic excuse for a family.

Sesshomaru pressed the key he still had into the door, and holding the intricate, shiny doorknob so tightly under his grasp that the metal molded into his ruthless, savage fingers, he walked into the mansion of his childhood.

Everything looked just the same as it did on the day he left to live and strive on his own as a teenager of barely sixteen— it was vast, extravagant, shadowy, and empty like the farthest recesses of the earth.

Of course it was. If he knew his father at all, which apparently he didn't after the dramatic change in successors, the man was rarely in the house and away on company trips and excursions across the country and in the China branch. His father was never there, but even as a child Sesshomaru never cared for his father's absences. How long had he lived like a wolf, prowling in the shadows, devouring its enemies, slaying its rivals, completely and irreversibly heartless?

Thinking back on it with a sardonic, bitter smile, Sesshomaru knew that it was probably his mother who had taught him that life was only steeped in success and respect once one discarded his heart for selfish power. His mother had done that. She was proud, regal, beautiful, and the head of her own prosperous company. Her marriage to Inutaisho had merely been a broker for their business deal. From her lack of concern during her husband's long and interminable business trips, Sesshomaru could easily assume that she didn't love or even care for her husband at all.

Maybe that was why his father had turned to that wretched woman, Izayoi Takahashi. Even the day Sesshomaru's mother had left the mansion, his father, and her son, she never touched him or held him or told him she even cared about him in anyway. She was too proud, and like her, Sesshomaru was too proud to bother himself with her. He cared about no one and had never experienced care from any other person.

Maybe that was why when Rin smiled at him with such compassion he couldn't get her out of his head.

Maybe that was why the only person he could seem to care about right now was her.

"Old man—!"

The front doors went soaring open, banging against the walls, and without even turning around Sesshomaru knew who it was. Inuyasha walked in front of him, his eyes wide in shock, gasping for breath. Really, that mindless cur— he always acted on impulse, didn't he? Too much heart and will, too little restraint and cold logic. That was also why Sesshomaru hated him so.

"You…" Inuyasha gasped, shocked, staggering to a halt a good distance from his brother. On his handsome face the surprise quickly transformed into pure, unbridled outrage, and Inuyasha's golden eyes blazed like molten metal. "What the hell are you doing here?!"

His silver head angled ever so slightly back, Sesshomaru returned his brother's glare with his own, his eyes icy and murderous as they pierced through his light bangs. The very name and thought of his brother alone was enough to kindle the disdainful feelings within Sesshomaru, but seeing him here, in the flesh, in his father's goddamned likeness, bristling and naïve like a wild mutt, he could barely suppress the desire to rip the boy to pieces.

This boy was going to try and steal everything away from him, everything he had ever stood for. He would try to overthrow him.

Sesshomaru advanced ever so faintly forward. He needed to calm himself down. "I was here looking for our father," he lied coldly, "but you'll have to do." Sesshomaru put his hands in his pockets, posed, reserved, controlled, scornful. "Does the name Shikon Jewel ring any bells?"

Inuyasha practically leapt for his throat there and then, but clenching his fists at his sides, he stomped forward, matching his brother's advancing prowl. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You— don't you dare involve her in any of this—"

"Then you do know that brothel." Sesshomaru's voice was colder than the starkest ice now— it was as cold as the pitch-dark pit of hell, and it chilled Inuyasha to the bone.

Inuyasha's heart was pounding madly and viciously like a drum against his chest now. "And what do you care? Are you trying to get me back for the old man choosing me as his successor? I didn't know you were that fuckin' sore of a loser, Sesshomaru."

"I'm not getting back at you," Sesshomaru hissed, circling his brother now, their gazes held, unwavering, and each man's animosity for the other completely revealed. "I'm getting back what belongs to me— my rightful place in this household."

"Keep Kagome out of this!" Inuyasha shouted, quaking with anger, breathing hard, leaning up into his brother's face. "She has nothing to do with you, so stop messing around with her."

"I think she's completely involved in this. Even with your filthy pedigree, who would have known you'd chose a whore for your woman—"

"Shut the hell up—!"

"You're just trash, unworthy of anything, not of my place, my possessions. You're pathetic, weak—"

"_You're_ the pathetic son who was screwed over by his old man!—"

"It makes sense that the only thing your worthy of owning would be a prostitute. And it makes sense—"

"You just don't want to lose to me, you never had, you with all our high and mighty and goddamned arrogance!—"

"—since your mother was a whore herself—"

"Sesshomaru! Do you want to die?"

"In the end that's all she was to our father. Just a petty, disposable mistress. Just a worthless woman he couldn't even bring himself to marry."

Inuyasha's eyes were swimming now with violent, brassy color, like a storm, like a rush of blind light. "You won't be missing that tongue, then, you bastard."

"As if you could ever beat me, you trash," Sesshomaru answered in cold, even tones, and Inuyasha raised his fist and sent it hurtling toward his brother.

It all happened in a flurry, and blood pounded to Inuyasha's head, the words repeating, cutting and tormenting through his head. He sent his fist pumping through the air at Sesshomaru, and when his brother eased away and dodged it, he hurled punch after unrelenting punch at the goddamned, self-conceited bastard.

"She was not a whore!" Inuyasha shouted. "You couldn't even begin to understand her. You're just too fucking vain!"

Idly eying his brother's fist soaring at him, Sesshomaru swayed back, leaning outside the range of his brother's violent deluge of blows. Powerful but sloppy, as always, with not tact but only raw, unguided, useless force. Strength had no meaning without tact and intelligence to use it efficiently, and Sesshomaru caught his brother's wrist in his hand, crushing the boy's wrist in his finger's, and he yanked his brother down so that he could knee him, hard and squarely, in the stomach. Inuyasha coughed, gasping with pain, reeling back, and Sesshomaru knew that that was how you properly applied power and force.

"You are the only who couldn't even begin to understand me," Sesshomaru told his brother as he walked calmly over to him in measured strides, and Inuyasha glared up at him, still clutching his stomach. "You're just too pitifully stupid."

Inuyasha clenched his teeth, and he was jumping back at Sesshomaru, not only punching and striking at him with his fists but trying to reach him with his kicks. Sesshomaru was being pushed back with his one useful hand and his other injured hand in his pocket. Raising his fist, Inuyasha aimed directly at Sesshomaru's face, and he was forced to use his other hand, catching Inuyasha's blow before it touched him.

Sesshomaru felt the white-hot pain as Inuyasha's knuckles ground into his stitches, and he felt the burn and the blood dripping down his palm.

"Not as good as you thought, are you, bastard?" Inuyasha panted, and he dug his fist into Sesshomaru's hand, the blood now on his knuckles.

"I've dealt with worse," Sesshomaru answered and he snatched his hand away. The blood fell, running and dark like ink, onto the floor. Sesshomaru could feel the pain of the open wound course through him like an electrical current. He raised the heel off the floor, ready to jump at his brother. Inuyasha watched him and prepared to fight.

"That's enough," a low voice called out, and a bang rent the tense air like a gunshot. Sesshomaru and Inuyasha turned to the open door, and there stood the tall, muscled, immense man with a mane of white-blonde hair, his face carved and stringent, and his very presence instilling the air with a wakeful, fearful reverence. His ground the end of his cane into the ground, and around him fumbled the stooped, old Myoga and lanky Totosai.

"Inutaisho," Sesshomaru whispered.

"Lords Sesshomaru and Inuyasha!" Myoga squeaked and scuttled over to them. He stared at the blood on the floor and the bruise red and ringed around Inuyasha's wrist. "What on earth happened?"

"This is quite a scene," Totosai remarked expressionlessly.

"It's got nothing to do with you," Inuyasha said as he pushed the old man away from him, and he narrowed his eyes. "It's between me and that wretched Sesshomaru."

His cloak draped across his shoulder like a marvelous cape, Inutaisho slowly stepped toward his sons. He and Sesshomaru looked at each other.

"It doesn't matter," Sesshomaru said in a low voice, stuffing his bleeding hand into his pocket, and he stepped swiftly around his father, not even bothering to turn back. His word against Inuyasha and his father, and he already knew what would happen— he would suffer Inutaisho's stony, wrathful silence, and he would not budge an inch. He needed to destroy Inuyasha completely with irrefutable proof.

But even that wasn't the full truth. He did hate his brother and his father. He resented the succession stolen wrongfully from him. But even that hatred was a distraction from the other feeling that had taken root in his newly forming heart. Even going here to beat Inuyasha was just to get that feeling out of his heart and mind. The thing that had once been his whole existence— the succession, his wealth, his power, his company— was now just a distraction from something greater that occupied his mind.

It was the fearful and enticing thought of caring about Rin.

…

"I'm…not…leaving…" Rin yawned as she sat outside of the door, her hands clenched on the doorknob like a climber hanging for dear life from the edge of a cliff. She seemed more spirited and defiant than desperate, though, and she didn't once even consider letting go.

In front of her Jaken was leaning against his cane, his feet tired and sore from having been standing in the same spot for over five hours. "You stupid girl… it's almost 10 o'clock...why don't you just scurry off like the good little pest you are…?!"

Rin shook her head fiercely and clutched the door again. The hours passed by with the two of them alternately yelling and then pushing and pulling and obstinately refusing to move, and before Jaken and Rin knew it, five hours had flown by with both of them still outside the penthouse door.

"I'll beat you!" Jaken shouted, at the end of his wits now, and he raised his cane over his head.

Rin didn't even so much as flinch. "I still won't leave."

"Argh, what the hell is wrong with you, you deranged child?!"

"What is going on?"

The familiarly low and merciless voice cut through the air, and both Rin and Jaken whipped around to the elevator to find Sesshomaru exiting the steel-gray doors.

"Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken and Rin cried simultaneously, and Jaken shot Rin a blazing glare as Rin just stared innocently at the bizarre toad-man.

Pulling himself to his fullest height and reaching a little above the doorknob, Jaken approached Sesshomaru, fumbling over the sore soles of his diminutive feet. "What happened, my lord? How did you get back from the mansion?" Jaken gasped in shock after realizing he never drove back to the estate to bring back Sesshomaru.

"Totosai chauffeured me," Sesshomaru replied swiftly.

"When did you leave the mansion, my lord? Why were you gone for so long? What happened?!"

"Yes," Rin nodded, wondering, looking inquiringly at Sesshomaru.

"Don't you talk to Lord Sesshomaru!" Jaken hissed. Rin watched him innocently, trying to recall whether she'd seen so strange and fascinating a person or thing.

Gliding past Jaken, Sesshomaru reached the front door with Rin still seated, now poised and attentive, right in front of him. Just the person he was trying to get his wracked brains off of. Why did he go to the mansion to avoid the thought of caring about her when she just appeared at his doorstep? It was like he couldn't avoid the feeling from growing within him. Did everyone want to make him have a heart?

In her pink, ornate, and oversized kimono with a large bandage stuck across the side of her face, Rin couldn't have been more out of place in the expensive apartment complex. Well, not exactly— with Sesshomaru standing tall, proud, and decked in luxury, brand-name clothing, she looked like a street vendor you'd find in front of a make-shift key-chain stand. And yet, she still looked brighter and more precious than anything he had ever seen his entire life, even more than the high-class women and expensive glamor. He couldn't take his eyes off of her.

He hated that about her.

"What are you doing here?" Sesshomaru said icily.

Rin wasn't put off one bit by Sesshomaru's cold, distant demeanor. "I'm here to help you," she said cheerily in her jingling lilt of a voice. Her voice was like music, the slow but graceful wing-beats of a butterfly. It was so maddeningly endearing.

This girl obviously didn't know how the world worked, Sesshomaru thought. When you're the helpless girl working in a prostitute business and he was the rich and esteemed son of a famous CEO, the one who needed help was Rin, not Sesshomaru. Watching Rin's bright and unwavering smile, Sesshomaru also knew that it was pointless to point that fact out to the girl. He couldn't let her invade his mind and newly forming heart like this anymore. He shouldn't care about her. He needed to stop this, now, before he couldn't quell the caring any more.

And so, instead of aiding Rin like he wanted to, Sesshomaru lifted her by the collar from his door and dropped her in front of the elevator without a word.

"Ha! I told you, you infernal girl!" Jaken laughed as Sesshomaru opened the door to the penthouse.

"Wait!" cried Rin as she jumped from the ground and padded over to the closing door. "I can help you find Kagome."

The door froze in Sesshomaru's hands, and stopping in the doorway with his back still turned to Rin, Sesshomaru considered the proposition. With Jaken watching him anxiously, Sesshomaru wrapped his hand around the edge of the door and pulled it ever so slightly ajar. Even if Rin did promise to get him to Kagome and destroy his brother, Sesshomaru knew the truth now.

It was just an excuse for him to watch over Rin and protect her.

"My lord?" Jaken said nervously.

Rin smiled and she ran through the open door with Sesshomaru and a bewildered Jaken following her into the penthouse.

…

The moment Rin sat down at the table Sesshomaru could practically imagine the flicker of a dark and delighted puppy tail wagging behind her. He couldn't fathom how a girl who had just been recently beaten and labored her childhood away in a filthy whorehouse could possibly look so happy.

There were so many questions swarming like gnats around Jaken's head that he was practically wincing from the effort of dealing with them all.

"Lord Sesshomaru, the mansion—why—this girl— who the hell are you, first of all?" Jaken shouted at the humming and content Rin.

"I'm Rin. I'm almost fourteen!" the girl answered cheerily as she kicked her loosely-sandaled feet into the air. She was so absorbed in the splendor and magnitude of the penthouse, something she had never experienced in her poor life, that she didn't even notice Jaken's outrage. Sesshomaru was slightly surprised, moving his head ever so slightly- she looked younger to him, either by the sheer and untainted innocence of her character or her unabated brightness. Rin hummed and kicked her feet into the air like a child. She certainly had the light and optimistic disposition of a child, and the thought passed through Sesshomaru's head that maybe it was her cheerfulness and childishness that kept her going and surviving in the brothel. Maybe it was the only way she could live, clinging to an absurd hope, her smile like a shield to deflect the blows of drunkards and wastrels.

"That's not what I mean!" Jaken complained. "What the hell do you have to do with Lord Sesshomaru?! What are you scheming?"

"Lord Sesshomaru helped me at the Shikon Jewel," said Rin.

"And what on earth is that?"

"A brothel," Rin answered, still humming and smiling.

His cane falling onto the floor, Jaken clutched his heart and then kept himself from collapsing by grabbing the edge of the sofa. Watching Jaken gasp and burst into a cold sweat with his eyes bulging like balloon, Rin was reminded of a choking frog more than ever.

"You lie, you little wretch! My Lord is far above that kind of…debauchery! How dare you say something so foul?!"

"It's true!"

"You must be a mini gold-digger or something, trying to sell filthy lies to the tabloids. I tell you, on my honor, I will not let you do it—!"

"It's true, Lord Sesshomaru got injured trying to protect me from drunkards!" Rin huffed.

Jaken looked from the self-assured Rin to Sesshomaru, his face blanched with shock and pale with heavy sweat. "M-my lord, please tell this girl how insidious a lie that is!"

Lounging against his sofa, Sesshomaru merely sighed and closed his golden eyes.

Jaken practically ruptured an artery. "I-it must be some mistake!" he stammered, still staring at Sesshomaru, and finding him completely silent, Jaken fell to his knees after nearly fainting for the second time.

Not even sparing a glance at his incompetent servant, Sesshomaru gingerly pulled his wounded hand from his pocket. He hadn't had the time to bother with it after enduring the commotion with Jaken and the girl who miraculously showed up in front of his door. When Sesshomaru opened up his hand, it was caked with dark and still wet blood. This time Jaken did faint.

"Your hand!" Rin gasped, her eyes wide, and she jumped from the table over to Sesshomaru's side. For a moment she just paced around him, fixed on the bloody cut in Sesshomaru's hand, and then she ran over to Jaken.

"Tell me where the first-aid kit is!" she demanded, and she shook Jaken's limp shoulders with all her might.

"Wha…?" Jaken mumbled, still semi-conscious, and without waiting for his reply, Rin dragged Jaken behind her into the bathroom.

"What— what the hell are you doing?"

"I'm looking for your first-aid kit," Rin replied, still hauling Jaken across the floor by his collar as if he were one of her dolls.

"Let me go, you cretin! It's the bottom shelf, the bottom shelf!"

Rin released her hold and Jaken, the man's head crashing against the floor, and then she pulled a white, plastic box out of the bathroom cabinet and ran over to Sesshomaru. Jaken groaned as he rubbed the back of his aching head, and without either of them exchanging a word, Rin grabbed Sesshomaru's hand and began to clean the blood with cotton swabs.

"You little brat! Don't you touch my lord! You'll make his injury worse!"

Oblivious to Jaken, Rin continued to tend to Sesshomaru's hand, dressing his open wound in gauze and ribbons of bandages. She seemed focused on nothing else save the loops of bandaging she wrapped ever so carefully across Sesshomaru's palm with a touch as gentle as a ray of light. Her touch was so agile, so light.

The words just escaped his mouth like they always did when it came to this girl. "You're good at that," Sesshomaru said.

Surprised and delighted by Sesshomaru's response, Rin smiled wide. "I'm used to it. I tend to my own cuts and bruises back at Shikon Jewel."

Sesshomaru remained silent, thinking about that one incident he had saved Rin from last time, and he knew that probably wasn't the only instance Rin got hurt while working at the Shikon Jewel. How many times had this girl been used in that place, like a rag-doll, her body used, while not in the exact same way as the prostitutes, but for the same sick satisfaction of the bastards who bought her at the shop? How could she still bear to smile like that?

"Thanks to you, they didn't beat me up as badly. The last time I got burned with a cigarette," Rin chatted cheerfully, and she lifted her hand. "I got a scar on the same hand as Lord Sesshomaru! But it's okay. I know how to take care of my injuries, and sometimes I help the other girls, too, when they get hurt. I know how to cook and clean, too!"

Rin wound the bandages tight and stiff around Sesshomaru's cut.

"Sometimes," Rin said, her eyes averted, "sometimes, I tend to Kagome, too. She gets a lot of bruises."

"What do you know about that girl?" said Sesshomaru in a quiet voice, Rin's fingers still dancing and floating across the palm of his hand. It felt like a breath of wind on his skin. Even though he was asking about Kagome right now, his mind still wandered back to Rin's soft touch. "Kagome Higurashi?"

"She's really nice!" Rin said excitedly. She bounced on the couch beside Sesshomaru like a happy, irrepressible puppy, and Sesshomaru could have sworn he imagined a dark, doggy tail flicking pleasantly behind her. "Sometimes, she'll help me clean and do laundry for the other girls. She hasn't been working for the Shikon Jewel long. Sometimes she looks…so sad there. She gets hurt, a lot, too, like me. It's that one customer of hers, I think, who gives her bruises and makes her miserable."

"What customer?"

Rin's face darkened, and the light, so pure, so seemingly inexhaustible, left her dark eyes. She said the words with such a voice that she sounded like a little music box, chipped and worn around the edges, discordant after suffering the rough hands of its last owner.

"Mr. Naraku Onigumo."

The sudden realization struck Sesshomaru— that doctor with those calculating, malicious smiles and hair as dark as the black back of a spider. Before Sesshomaru had noticed it Rin had finished arranging the bandages in his hand, and her fingers lingered in his own as if she was about to fall. He was the only thing she could grab onto to save herself. Sesshomaru let her hand linger in his own. She seemed so fragile.

"That Onigumo," said Sesshomaru, "goes to Shikon Jewel and he's involved with that girl?"

"Yes. He doesn't go for anyone else. He says he only wants Kagome, and not any of the other girls. He says that she looks like the girl he loved. When he gets into the room alone with Kagome…I could hear him, shouting, and hitting her and throwing stuff at her. I don't understand why he does it if she looks like the person he loves."

Rin yawned and rubbed her eyes, remnants of tears still shining in her eyes. "Kagome…doesn't really have a choice though. Mr. Onigumo pays her a lot more than the other girls, and Kagome needs the money really bad. I don't know why…I'm not sure if money even is the only reason. But, even if Mr. Onigumo didn't pay her all that money, she'd be fired if she refused him."

"What do you mean?" Sesshomaru said slowly.

Rin's dark eyes found his. "Because Mr. Onigumo owns the Shikon Jewel. Kagura's just there to run it when he's away on his other business. He usually is never there, just in the middle of the night when he's not doing his other job. He owns everyone there, though. It's his shop." The words left Rin in an expired breath as if her very life was being sucked out of her. The light around her flickered and grew dim. The next words she said very slowly, as if she were half-asleep, as if she wished she were waking from some long and haunting dream.

"After my Mom died," Rin said slowly and she touched the bandage on the side of her face, "the shop took me in. And Mr. Naraku Onigumo adopted me. He's my guardian."

* * *

_I hope you all liked this newest chapter despite it being kinda short. Sorry if progress is a little slow, me and my pacing... but we're finally getting somewhere with the Rin and Sesshomaru relationship. And, of course, more dirt about Naraku is revealed. There'll probably be some more confrontations in the future, with Inuyasha and Seshomaru, too! Please review, whether it be encouragement or constructive criticisms (either helps to inspire me to write!)_


	5. Chapter 5: For whom you care

_Okay, thanks for your patients and here's chapter 5! I was so glad about the surprised (and rightfully outraged) reactions to Naraku and Rin's secret! It was nice to hear (or read, I guess) people's thoughts about Rin's situation and Naraku as the big, bad villain. This chapter's kinda long, but I hope you enjoy._ _Please read and review, I'd love to see all your reactions!_

* * *

5.

"Why does she have to stay here tonight?" Jaken grumbled to himself as he paced around sleeping Rin, her eyes gently closed, her mouth barely parted. Yes, yes, she looked like a doll, but that wasn't the problem—"and why does she have to sleep in my bed?!"

After that girl, Rin or whoever she was, had dressed Lord Sesshomaru's wound, she'd just passed out on the sofa. That was why whelps like her were so annoying. They just did whatever they wanted to, barging into people's houses (even though it wasn't his), using people's Band-Aids and first-aid kits (what if he needed it later?!), and then, to top it all off, selfishly falling asleep in other people's, _his_, bed!

"How dare you sleep so soundly, you little pipsqueak, after making Lord Sesshomaru carry you here!?" Jaken hissed into Rin's tranquil and dreaming face.

Never in his life and his long and very productive job as Lord Sesshomaru's servant had Jaken seen ever Lord Sesshomaru like that. The moment Sesshomaru had found Rin asleep with her head on his shoulder, he had scooped her up in his arms with no more strength than he would have used plucking a fallen blossom from the ground. Jaken couldn't even read the expression of Lord Sesshomaru's face. It was something more than the usual distant, reserved coldness. There was a hint of something in the depths of his amber eyes, almost like... Jaken was in complete shock.

"So your life's a sob story. So what? You don't deserve Lord Sesshomaru's favor!" Jaken said angrily, hoping his bitter voice would reach Rin as her restless nightmares. Rin didn't even budge. "So your parents are dead! So you're beaten by adults! So you're worked to the bone in a run-down brothel! So your guardian is a two-faced bastard and you've got no one else in the world…"

Jaken trailed off as his argument fell apart at the seams.

"My point," Jaken coughed, trying to regain his bravado, "is that I am the one who helps Lord Sesshomaru! He depends on me! Not a pitiful brat like you!"

Nudging into her pillow, Rin smiled in her sleep and then drifted back into unperturbed sleep. How could you stay angry at someone as innocent and serene as this girl?!

"Fine," Jaken reluctantly grumbled, and he sank into a nearby armchair, watching Rin with half-hearted resentment. "You can use my bed, but only for tonight! And only because it's my Lord Sesshomaru's request!"

And then Jaken fell asleep, snoring in his chair right across from Rin's bed.

…

"That Onigumo bastard, huh?"

Sesshomaru sat in the sofa, turning a glass of crushed ice and whiskey in his newly treated hand. With the curtains still pulled away from the tall, expansive windows, the moonlight fell straight onto Sesshomaru's hair, making it bright with shining silver light.

So that Onigumo guy, that Naraku— he was involved with Kagome Higurashi. That was why he reacted that way when Sesshomaru had said her name. While he posed as a benign doctor during the day, he ran a grungy brothel in the night, and used one of his own prostitutes for his sick amusement.

"He's Rin's guardian," Sesshomaru said to himself in a low voice. That bastard, who would beat up and coerce a girl into being his toy of a woman- _he_ owned Rin. That bastard who beat a girl black and blue, left her covered in bruises, was Rin's guardian. Her foster father.

Of course, that was why Rin was forced to work in that place, cleaning, cooking, and attending to belligerent drunkards. He was the one who let those men beat and break Rin into pieces.

What would happen, Sesshomaru wondered, after Rin was old enough for Naraku to use her like Kagome Higurashi? What would happen to that girl after she was became a young woman, and Naraku could beat her and sleep with her and destroy her beyond repair? What happened when he would touch her for more than a beating?

Suddenly, Sesshomaru felt his hand throb with pain. When he looked back at his injured hand, he realized the glass he was holding within his fingers was now cracking and leaking golden whiskey through the broken glass. Sesshomaru set the almost-shattered glass onto the table and reclined against the sofa, thinking about the small and delicate young girl he had just cradled in his arms as she slept.

…

"What did you say, my lord?"

Sesshomaru glared at Jaken while Rin hummed and pranced around him, just as bright and bouncy as ever.

"Take her to the mall and get her some proper clothes," Sesshomaru commanded his servant as he gaped in horror.

"Bu-bu-but, my lord—!"

Sesshomaru gave Jaken a steely look, his golden eyes flashing like light of a slab of sharp and excruciatingly cold ice, and Jaken fell anxiously silent.

"Proper clothes?" Rin said in confusion, peering down at her pink and oversized kimono. She hadn't worn any other clothes besides kimono like these the entire time she had been living in Shikon Jewel.

Jaken miserably grabbed at his car keys. "And what about you, my lord?"

"I have other business to attend to," Sesshomaru answered coolly.

"Wait!" Rin cried frantically, and Sesshomaru could recognize that same timidity and quiet fear he had seen when he first met the girl. "I want to go with you, Lord Sesshomaru!"

"Don't complain! I don't want to be stuck with you either, you whelp!" Jaken shouted, and rapped his cane against Rin's head. Rushing away from Jaken to Sesshomaru, Rin clutched her head and looked imploringly at the man. Sesshomaru almost couldn't believe how attached kids could get.

But she looked happier and livelier in any case than last night when she confided in him, pressed against him with her fragile and dainty body that had no more weight than the discarded petals of a wilted flower. There was still that paleness in her face that betrayed the only partial recovery of her spirits and a delicate tenderness in her large plum-dark eyes where, within, Sesshomaru noticed little tints of sadness. She looked so preciously frail that if Sesshomaru didn't grab hold of her there and then, she might just fade away like a bloom in the bone-white snows of winter.

Before he knew it, Sesshomaru raised his hand and held his open palm mere inches away from Rin's face. For a moment he let his fingers linger by her cheek, feeling the slight body heat that radiated off of her cream-white skin. Then, Sesshomaru noticed Rin looking at him with her dark and shimmering eyes in surprise and then confusion and he drew himself away.

"Go with Jaken, Rin," Sesshomaru commanded in a low voice, and with Rin staggering behind him in bewilderment, Sesshomaru stepped out of the door.

…

"Hey, Sota, Kaede, stop fighting!"

Stepping between her two slapping and screaming siblings, Kagome wrenched Sota and Kaede apart and set them on opposite sides of the breakfast table. On one of the rare days of peace she should have had from work and other worries, she was barely putting up with her fussy younger siblings as they bickered and complained to one another.

"What is going on with Inuyasha?" Kagome complained to her cellphone. Ever since she had met up with him at the park, he hadn't tried to contact her, and likewise, she couldn't reach him no matter how many times she tried.

"He's not mad about me getting angry with him, is he?" Kagome nervously interrogated her cellphone.

"No, Inuyasha likes to tease you. He told me so," Sota answered and picked at his lunch. Blushing, Kagome pushed her brother down into his seat and away from where he could pester her.

"Don't annoy your sister too much, Sota," Mrs. Higurashi sighed as she stirred her pot over the stove. "She's been working nonstop to help provide for your meals."

As her mother smiled at her, Kagome felt the familiar grip of guilt in her heart. Oblivious to their sister's pain, Kaede and Sota continued to argue across the table, completely ignorant of their sister's work. When Kagome had insisted on getting a job to help pay for their big and poor family, she had just told her mother she was working at a diner and waiting tables. It hadn't been a complete lie at first. She had started out working at Shikon Jewel just as a hostess in a short-cut dress and at the most giving out flirty smiles for much more money than she could have made at any other part-time job with lesser a risk.

And then he had shown up, he had found her. She was trapped.

"No, it's no big deal, Mom," Kagome said softly. Yeah, part of the reason she needed the money was to keep her struggling family afloat with a part-time mother, a frequently ill grandfather, two younger siblings to feed and clothe, and no father to help out. She tried to help shoulder some of the weight and help her mother. But that wasn't the main reason.

Kagome slumped in her seat, feeling the new bruises aching on her shoulders and back, and she looked at her cellphone. Completely and maddeningly black.

Where was Inuyasha when she needed him?

…

"I can't believe that I, the great Jaken, am being forced to babysit some whelp!"

Sitting on a bench outside the changing stalls as people pushed past him with stacks of clothes in their arms, and occasionally toppling their clothes onto Jaken's head, the little imp-man couldn't help but feel a twinge of irritation.

"How about this one, Lord Jaken?" Rin asked as she stepped out of her stall and twirled the hem of her polka-dotted, baby blue dress.

"I have no idea." Some shopper backed right into Jaken, sending him rocking forward and almost falling off the bench and face-first into the floor.

Rin disregarded Jaken's disgruntled reply and obvious annoyance. "I can't remember the last time I was in a place like this! There are so many clothes, and they're so pretty."

"I don't care," Jaken huffed, and another shopper didn't see him sitting down and dropped her pile of disheveled clothes right onto him. All too close to exploding, Jaken tossed the clothes into the air with a shout, and he leapt to his feet, breathing hard and his eyes popping.

"Lord Jaken?" Rin asked, twirling in her dress.

"I can't take this anymore! I'm waiting outside!" Jaken shouted, and pulling the strap of a bra from his bald head, he stalked out of sight before Rin could even protest.

Looking from her blue dress to the vacant spot where Jaken had been, Rin grabbed an armful of clothes and sat admiring them on the bench. What was the fun in trying out these clothes if there was no one to show them to? Rin preferred just to lift the beautiful dresses and blouses before her and admire them, like jewels. It almost felt beyond her to even touch such fine things. She wished that Lord Sesshomaru were there so she could show him the lovely dresses.

"Sango, are you done yet?" A young boy complained from the bench across from Rin. Hunched in his seat, he looked maybe a couple years older than Rin with thick, black hair pulled into a short ponytail and freckles on his otherwise fair face.

"Just wait a moment!" a voice called from the stalls, and Rin could hear the rustle of fabric, the toss of hair, and the door of the stall clicked open and out stepped a beautiful young woman with dark and flowing hair dressed in a filmy blouse and bell-bottom jeans.

"I guess it looks fine," Kohaku answered uncertainly, although it was hard to watch his sister dress herself up and expect him to give her a reaction a lover of a girl-friend was supposed to come up with.

Sango crossed her arms. "Well, don't flatter me that much or I might think I'm actually decent-looking," the girl said sarcastically, her dark hair falling in a rich, ebony cascade down her shoulders.

"So pretty," Rin said before she could stop herself, and Kohaku and Sango turned around and stared at her. As the silence persisted, Rin wondered if she said something she shouldn't have.

"See?" Sango said firmly after a moment, and she strode over to Rin and grabbed the girl's slender shoulder, continuing, "this is what you're supposed to say."

Kohaku scratched his head. "I didn't know there was a right or wrong answer."

"Of course there is," Sango replied dismissively, and sliding onto the bench, Sango drew Rin toward her. She had the natural older-sister, slightly-maternal air about her. It was comforting. "What's your name? Are you waiting for someone?"

"No, the person I was with just left," Rin answered slowly, surprised to be talking with and so close to a woman so pretty. While the prostitutes at Shikon Jewel certainly weren't unattractive, they were pretty in a more provocative, more shameful, more fake sense than the natural and mature beauty of this woman. "Oh, and I'm Rin," the girl added hastily.

"I'm Sango," the older girl said smilingly, and she rose to her feet, her hand outstretched to Rin. "If you're not with anyone else, Rin, why don't you check out some clothes with me? It's not as fun, shopping alone. That's why I brought Kohaku."

"Gee, thanks," Kohaku said from his seat, his brow slightly rumpled.

"Well?" said Sango, tossing her rope of dark hair over one shoulder. "How about it?"

Pressing her old, pink and crumpled kimono to her chest, Rin gingerly, haltingly took Sango's hand. "Okay."

…

"Where the hell did you take Rin?!"

Sesshomaru glided through the doors of the Shikon Jewel to find a harangued and disheveled Kagura marching over to him with her fan pointed like a knife in his direction. The other prostitutes and hostesses watched their employer in horror, and Kagura's dark eyes were set blazing and incensed on Sesshomaru in borderline murderous outrage.

"She just disappeared yesterday, and she didn't come back last night!" Kagura screamed, her hair falling in black tendrils out of its orderly bun. "I swear, if you did anything to her, I'll call the police!"

"She came to me," Sesshomaru answered icily as Kagura prodded him with her fan. "She's with my servant right now."

"You'd better not have done anything to her, you—"

"Where is Onigumo?" Sesshomaru demanded coldly.

Kagura froze mid-lunge at Sesshomaru, strands of her dark hair still falling into her face, her eyes wide and stunned. The anger leaving her like a dream, the woman staggered back, composing herself and retreating to her counter by the bar.

"How did you know that name?" Kagura asked evenly, beating cool air with her fan into her face, hot and red after flying to a fitful rage.

"Rin told me." Sesshomaru's voice was like freezing waters, and Kagura could feel the cold thrill course through her, rising up to her throat and threatening to make her drown.

"Well, isn't she just the regular chatterbox these days?" Kagura said contemptuously and examined her crimson nails, trying to avoid Sesshomaru's piercing look. "At least around you. I can't begin to understand why."

"Where," said Sesshomaru, and he leaned over the counter, his golden eyes flashing, "is Onigumo?"

"Why do you care?"

"He seems to keep on getting in my way. He's an annoyance."

"I'm sure he'll be pleased to hear you tell him that!" Kagura laughed. "Look, I don't know how much Rin has told you, but he's not here. He rarely is. He's usually doing his other decent, _proper_ job."

"Is that man even a doctor?"

"Rin told you even that much?" Kagura said with a bitter smile.

"No." Sesshomaru wove his fingers together and rested his chin on his hands. "I saw him at the hospital myself."

Sighing ever so slightly, Kagura leaned into the counter, her dark eyes now glazed over despondently. The very mention of Naraku seemed to drain the life out of her, but none of the fighting, resentful bitterness. Kagura touched the little feather in her hair, trying to keep herself up and going. "Well, if you want to know, Mr. Ookami, I was the full-fledged owner of Shikon Jewel a couple years back. Things…weren't going so well for us, and Naraku said he would give us money and help if I signed over the shop to him. Even though he doesn't seem like it, he's a pretty well-paid doctor. I don't know why the hell he'd even want this place, though."

"Why is he Rin's guardian?" Sesshomaru cut in coldly.

Kagura gave the man a look. "Rin's mother died two years ago. Nobody knew who Rin's father was, but Rin's mother gave birth to her here. After she died, we all had no idea what to do with the girl. It's not easy to feed and care for a little girl. Naraku _graciously_ decided to adopt her and keep her in this place instead of the streets. We have no choice. What Naraku wants," Kagura hissed, "Naraku gets."

Sesshomaru said nothing, and Kagura continued, her expression probing, considering, "I don't know why you have suddenly taken an interest in Rin, Mr. Ookami, but I suggest that you keep the girl at a distance. The girl likes you enough, I can tell that. But she's Naraku's property, just like everyone and everything else in this place—"

"Including my brother's prostitute," answered Sesshomaru.

"Yes," Kagura said haltingly. "Kagome Higurashi is…the sole property of Naraku as well. The bruises he gives her make sure that no one else touches her or wants to. Again, why he is so obsessed with her I have no idea. I know he pays her more than anyone else in this place would dream of making. The man's a goddamned enigma. And unfortunately, my half-brother."

Considering the prospect of Naraku Onigumo, Sesshomaru pulled himself up from his seat and draped his coat over his shoulder. Kagura watched him step away from the bar and toward the chipped crimson doors with an expression Sesshomaru couldn't discern—intrigue, maybe, in that hard look—

"Just," said Kagura, adjusting the scarlet feather in her hair, wincing at some sad and dismaying notion, "just…don't hurt Rin, Mr. Ookami. She's dealt with enough. She looks happier than I've seen her in a long time, and I don't think the reason is anybody else than you. Just try and take care of her a little, will you?"

Sesshomaru pushed the crimson doors open, and a slit of light fell onto the dusty, brothel floor like a halo.

"I guess Rin must see something more in you than I saw," Kagura laughed, a pained smile on her lovely face. "And here I thought you were just a sad little rich boy who wanted his father's love."

"I don't want his love," Sesshomaru answered simply, and the red doors flapped around him. "Just his money." And Sesshomaru disappeared behind the rust-red doors.

…

They had only been scouring the racks of clothing for little over an hour, and already Rin and Kohaku had managed to separate themselves completely from Sango. Fumbling around the shoppers with stacks upon precarious and half-falling stacks of clothes in their hands, Rin and Kohaku searched for Sango for a while before just deciding to wander aimlessly around the store.

"Really, that sister of mine," Kohaku muttered under his breath. "The moment we get out of the hospital, she decides to treat _me_ by taking herself shopping."

"Hospital?" Rin blinked.

"Yeah," Kohaku answered, awkwardly, ruffling his dark hair. "I don't have the…strongest body. My lungs are pretty weak. Severe asthma." Kohaku smiled bashfully. "Sango's always fussing over it. She's practically like my mother ever since our mom left." Stopping suddenly, Kohaku turned back to Rin and waved his hand dismissively, saying in a fluster, "Sorry, not that you need to know that."

"It's okay," Rin shrugged, and she said cheerfully, "I don't have a mom anymore, either."

Kohaku stared at Rin in surprise, taken aback by Rin's optimistic demeanor. Then, slightly smiling, he also raised his shoulders to his ears and said, "I guess we're kinda the same, then. But, even though Mom isn't there, Sango takes real good care of me. It's not always a sad story. You have someone too, don't you, who cares for you?"

"Yup!" Rin answered, her face glowing with joy. "I've got Lord Sesshomaru!"

"'Lord Sesshomaru'?" Kohaku blinked, puzzled. Then his eyes widened, and he gave Rin the same stunned and alarmed expression he might give a ghost. He said quickly, "Wait—you don't mean Sesshomaru Ookami? Part of the Ookami empire?"

"Yup!"

Kohaku whipped his head around and sighed in relief. "Maybe it's a good thing Sango isn't here. The last time she and Sesshomaru Ookami talked…it didn't leave the best impression on her."

"Why not?" Rin said in shock, completely astonished by the prospect of anyone feeling anything but respect and awe for her Lord Sesshomaru.

"Well," Kohaku ran a hand through his hair. "From what she told me, he was trying to set her up with some guy she can't stand. I don't really know the details, but when my sister hates anybody that much, he can't be a good guy."

Rin crossed her arms in disbelief.

"Hey, I'm just saying what she told me!" Kohaku replied to Rin's glare, waving his hands like a guard before him. "I never met him. And Sango could probably didn't mean it _that _badly." Kohaku inwardly knew that she did.

Puffing out her chest like an angry sparrow, Rin said heatedly, "Lord Sesshomaru…"

Suddenly the girl trailed off. Rin's mouth continued to remain open, speechlessly, and her eyes grew wide and blank. Kohaku watched her in confusion. Rin felt her heart stop, and over Kohaku's shoulder, in the distance, she recognized the dark, straggly hair and the sinister profile of that man, his eyes flashing malevolently with that forever malicious intent—

Naraku Onigumo.

"Rin?" Kohaku asked the stunned girl, perplexed.

Rin, staring in horror, dumbstruck, did the first thing that came into her head— she ran.

"Hey, Rin—!" Kohaku gasped, chasing after Rin.

Without thinking, her brain not even consulting her frenzied limbs, Rin just kept running and the fear propelled her forth, her legs pushing forward without stop, even when she stumbled. He was here—he would see her here—he couldn't—she would be punished. The vision flashed through her terrorized mind— that man's dark smile, his ruthless and savage white hands like deadly spiders—

She didn't want to be forced go back to that place yet. She wanted to stay with Sesshomaru.

"Rin!" Kohaku gasped again, hurtling through the mall after the pink-dressed girl. Racing forward, he could feel the familiar tightness in his chest, the sickening weightlessness in his stomach, and even Rin became a blurry, pink dot in his eyes. "Wait!" Kohaku gasped, and then, succumbing to the pain in his chest, Kohaku dropped to his knees.

Somehow, in her panic, Rin could catch the desperation in Kohaku's voice. She gradually stopped, and looking nervously behind her, she said in a quaking voice, "Kohaku?"

Behind her was Kohaku, lying on the floor. Feeling the fear well up inside her, Rin ran over to the boy. He lay in the tiled floor, his chest rising and falling fast, his breathing shallow and strained.

"Kohaku? Kohaku!" Rin cried in panic, grabbing Kohaku's shoulders. His eyelids fluttered, and his breath came out in feeble wisps. No, Rin thought in panic, no, no, no—

"Hey, are you alright?" said in low voice.

Rin whipped around and kneeling beside her was a man with dark, tousled hair tied carelessly back and golden hoops in his ears. With glassy, half-closed eyes, Kohaku turned to the man and said weakly, "My…asthma…"

"An asthma attack?" the man said, and then he turned to Rin, saying urgently, "do you two have an adult with you? Are you alone?"

"His—sister," Rin gasped, fear and panic rendering her tongue numb and useless. She watched Kohaku's sweaty and pale face, his breath sounding like the clattering cogs of a rusted machine creaking as it barely managed to run. This was her fault.

Kohaku feebly grabbed for his pocket and placed turned on his cellphone with shaking hands.

"Her number…is under the contacts," he wheezed. "It's…under 'Sango'."

For a moment the man stared at the phone in surprise, and then, hastily, he pressed the phone to his ear and began to talk into the other end. Rin watched his back in shock, but then she forced herself to stare at Kohaku again.

"I'm sorry," Rin gasped, and she eased her fingers into Kohaku's hand, feeling it warm and sweaty. Rin squeezed his palm feebly, bowing her dark head. It never turned out right. None of it. Not with Naraku around. Rin tried to keep her voice going. She needed to keep strong, keep going. "I'm so sorry, Kohaku."

Looking at Rin's lowered face, Kohaku said nothing and pressed her hand.

"Kohaku?!" a woman's voice rang out, and Rin saw Sango pelting toward them, her face white with concern. Falling to her knees, she gently raised her brother's head up and watched his semi-conscious face in concern. "Not an attack…" she muttered, her eyes shining and wide. "I need to get him to the hospital—I'll call my Dad to get us a ride—"

"I can take him in my car," the man said.

"Thank you so—" Sango turned to the man for the first time, and her eyes widened more than ever. "Miroku Shinjin…?" she said in consternation. Miroku returned her stare with a sheepish smile. Shaking her head and reminding herself of the situation, Sango replied quickly, "Yes, yes, of course…thank you."

"No problem," Miroku said in a low, quiet voice, and putting one of Kohaku's arms over his shoulder, he beckoned forward the two girls forward and began trudge through the halls.

…

"What on earth is taking that girl so long?!"

Jaken fumed outside the store, and unable to take anymore, he stomped back into the store and found Rin's dressing room. With his cane he knocked hard against it. No reply. Jaken, feeling the anger rise like lava in a volcano, banged the door harder until his staff nearly broke in two.

"What's taking you so long, you little—"

The door slammed open, hitting Jaken squarely in the face, and instead of Rin he found a woman staring at him with hateful eyes and a red face as she pressed her clothes to her bare body.

"Do you mind?!" the woman hissed. "What the hell is your problem?!" And she slammed the door hard around her.

Jaken stared in astonishment at the closed door. He looked around the benches. They were empty. He looked at the sprawling and crowded store full of strangers. He couldn't see Rin. Oh no.

Jaken stood rooted to the floor with his eyes bulging in horror. There was no Rin in sight.

"Lord Sesshomaru is going to kill me."

…

Rin was waiting outside the hospital room with Miroku, kicking her legs distractedly into the air. Sango had rushed inside the room with Kohaku and a doctor, and after giving Miroku a strange look, she excused herself and disappeared behind the white doors.

Miroku sighed. "What a weird coincidence." He looked at Rin. "I didn't know Sango had a little brother. Are you her sister?"

Rin shook her head. She said nothing. She was concentrating on persuading the fates to somehow forgive her and let Kohaku be okay.

There was a click from the door, and Sango stepped outside of Kohaku's room, relief on her still pale face. "It's alright. He's breathing better now, and the doctor is just glad he didn't lose consciousness completely."

"That's great!" Rin gasped. She felt her whole body loosen.

Miroku gave a soft smile. "Yeah, I'm glad your brother is okay," he said.

Sango looked at Miroku with an expression he had never seen on her face before, at least not when she would address him— she watched him with warmth and tenderness. "Thank you so much for helping him, Mr. Shinjin. If you hadn't found Kohaku, I don't know what I would have done."

"It's no big deal, Miss Ryoushi," Miroku waved a hand, still awestruck by Sango's lovely expression— she was more beautiful happy than she had ever appeared to him before. Maybe today wasn't turning out to be such a bad day after all. "You can just call me Miroku."

Sango's eyes softened, and she said in such a perfect, ringing voice that Miroku knew he would never forget it, "And you can just call me Sango."

…

After Kohaku was fine and Naraku was far from sight, Rin realized that she had just abandoned Jaken at the mall and she had no idea how to find him again. And so, as she waited for Miroku and Sango to finish their conversation (they looked like they didn't want to be interrupted), Rin decided to walk around the hospital a little and then ask for Sesshomaru's cellphone number. Kohaku had said that Sango knew Lord Sesshomaru, and maybe she'd be able to help Rin find him again.

"This hospital is really big," Rin said simply as she wandered the halls. She looked at the patients and doctors and even the decorative plants with fascination. She had never been in a hospital before. Most of her world consisted of the Shikon Jewel and its old, paint-chipped walls of rust-red colors. She had lived there her entire life, working under the half-light, on her hands and knees in the filth and dust. She had never known a world so bright and wide before.

After that one day, when Lord Sesshomaru had appeared through the space in the crimson, peeling doors, everything in Rin's world had begun to change. She had never seen someone like him. She felt like she had escaped the grunge and degradation— she felt like she could run. She felt like she was free.

"But it won't go on forever," Rin reminded herself, trying to keep her voice light, and then she felt the sting in the back of her eyes. Raising her fingers to her face, she was surprised to find the warm dampness of something like tears. Brusquely, she wiped them away, trying to keep smiling with all her might and all her heart. She pressed her fingers into the corners of her lips and tried to force them up in a stretched, anguished smile. She just needed to smile. Keep smiling, keep surviving. "It will be okay." A vision of a dark-haired man with sinister eyes flashed through her mind.

And then Rin saw something out of the corner of her eyes. That familiarly pretty face, the dark and thick hair. It was a sight she knew so well. That same sculpted face and girlish figure.

Rin rushed over to the figure with hazel eyes. "Kagome?" she gasped in surprise and the girl looked at her. She looked so awfully like Kagome, but then Rin realized she was different— there was something different in her eyes and her mature, composed expression.

The girl looked at Rin in surprise as Rin removed her hand from her hospital gown. No, she wasn't Kagome. Kagome wasn't a patient at the hospital.

"Sorry," Rin said, grabbing her hands anxiously behind her back. "I thought you were someone else. You look like…my friend."

The girl smiled. She was just as beautiful as Kagome, even though she looked paler, frailer, dressed in a simple hospital gown.

"That's okay," the woman said. "Are you visiting a patient here?"

"Yeah," said Rin, soothed by this familiar stranger. She was so like Kagome in her presence. She felt herself ease, open up, as if she were re-encountering an old friend. "I'm Rin."

The woman smiled, and she pulled back her sheet of dark, sumptuous hair. Her voice rang out like a little, broken music box, with a kind of defeated beauty.

"Hello, Rin. I'm Kikyo."


	6. Chapter 6: Colorless jewel

_ here- sorry about not updating since forever! I know there's no excuse for it, so I'm just going to cut to the chase and let everybody read the newest chapter! Thanks again for all you guys who have supported me and sorry for not updating recently!_

* * *

6.

Kikyo smiled at Rin. With her alabaster skin and demure smile, Kikyo reminded Rin of a little china doll, full of beauty but oddly devoid of life. The pallid quality to her complexion, the pale hospital gown that lay white and lank like sheets over her shoulders— Kagome seemed much livelier and healthier than this girl. They were so different and yet so similar.

"Rin? Where'd you go?" Sango's voice rang out, and Rin was drawn away from the woman's face.

Kikyo gave a soft but indiscernible smile, her hair falling as dark and stained as ink down her white gown. "You should get going. It seems that you have people who are looking for you. You wouldn't want to worry them."

Rin sensed something in her words, something deeper, and something closer to the woman. The words had the same rhythm as a fluttering heart, a little off-beat, a little too weak. "Do you have people who will look for you?" she asked simply, titling her head.

The woman gave that same vague smile.

"Rin!" Sango called out again, and watching the spectral figure of the sickly woman, Rin slowly staggered away.

As soon as Rin wandered over to her, Sango said in a fluster, "Where did you go off to? I thought you might have just left."

"I don't know where to leave," Rin said simply, bewildered by Sango's concern. Whenever Kagura or one of the other working girls was looking for her, they just screamed and complained when Rin hobbled over to them belatedly. Their concern over her absence was usually limited to a spill or broken glass that needed to be swept up.

"That's right!" Sango gasped. "Your guardian! You said they were waiting for you at the store— they must be so worried about you. Wait, I can call them," Sango said in a hurry and grabbed out her cellphone. "What's their number?"

"I don't know," Rin said simply, thinking.

Sango and Miroku watched her in surprise. "You don't know your parents' phone numbers?" Miroku asked in disbelief.

"Lord Jaken's not my parent," Rin said dismissively. She was filled with curiosity over what a child of Jaken's would actually look like. Probably fascinating. Rin shook the idea out of her head and then looked up at Sango. "You probably know his phone number, though."

"Me?" Sango said in confusion.

Rin nodded her head. "Kohaku said you knew Lord Sesshomaru." As Miroku and Sango looked at her with expressions of shock and horror spreading steadily across their faces, Rin smiled and said, "Could you call Lord Sesshomaru for me?"

Sango clutched her phone, speechless, looking at Rin as if she couldn't quite make out what she was. Miroku gaped at Rin and clutched a wall for support. Their eyes were both wide and astonished.

"Wait," Miroku said hastily, trying to compose himself, trying to think, "You don't mean Sesshomaru Ookami, do you?"

Rin's face glowed with the widest of smiles. Sango and Miroku looked more shocked than ever. "That's right!" Rin answered cheerily. "So you do know him!"

Sango's mouth moved aimlessly for a moment before she could articulate the words, "y-you're with Sesshomaru Ookami…?"

"Yup!" Rin smiled. She felt her heart soar after she heard the phrase. "He's looking after me!"

It was hard for Miroku and Sango to even begin to reason with this absurdity. They looked at Rin like they had never seen anything quite like her. With fumbling, slow fingers Sango began to look under the number for her business contacts and slowly dialed the number while Miroku watched Rin with a smirk growing across his face.

…

Sesshomaru sat at a red light, trying to turn his mind away from that Naraku Onigumo and Rin and back to the important matter, or so they should have been—Inuyasha, that Kagome Higurashi, and his inheritance. It had been to his amazement as he drove through the city that he realized he hadn't thought about the succession and his father's empire throughout the entire day. He had even walked into that dump of a brothel Shikon Jewel, willingly, deliberately, for the sake of Rin, not for his inheritance and his brother. He had gone there for Rin, not for himself.

This couldn't be good.

Sesshomaru swerved around a slow car and sped back to the apartment, trying to distract himself from that brothel and that girl, Rin. It was a good thing he had driven the second car today instead of having been chauffeured by Jaken. At least he could take his mind off it all.

Sesshomaru felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Clutching the sleek, black device in his fingers, he found a number he didn't recognize on the screen, a business number. Then he saw the heading RYOUSHI CORP. Sesshomaru pressed his cellphone to his ear while he laid his other hand languidly on the steering wheel.

"Mr. Ookami?" A tentative voice said from the other end. Where had Sesshomaru heard that voice before? "This is Sango Ryoushi."

"Miss Ryoushi? Why are you calling me?" Sesshomaru pressed his phone between his shoulder and his ear. "If this is about business, call me back later—"

"It's not—that—" Sango said uncertainly. She paused. Sesshomaru was getting annoyed. Then Sango cleared her throat, sending a static fizzle through the cellphone connection, and she said in a unsure tones, "do you know a girl named Rin?"

Sesshomaru pressed down hard on his gas pedal, pushing quickly back over the brake when he nearly rammed into the car in front of him. These were the times when he wished Jaken were driving. Sango waited in timid silence from the other end.

"…why do you ask?" Sesshomaru said, clutching the wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white.

"It's just that she's at the hospital with me and my brother right now. She said that—"

"Hospital?" Sesshomaru interrupted. He was thinking hard, and he felt the plastic of his wheel shift under his furious hands. The scenarios flashed quickly through his mind—Rin, beaten battered, her dark eyes closing, and her mouth bright with blood. He remembered seeing Rin sprawled on the ground and bleeding like that one time those drunkards had dared to hit her. "What happened?"

"N-nothing," Sango said hastily, and Sesshomaru could sense the surprise in her voice and the uncertain lapses in her words. Sesshomaru was surprised with himself as a sigh of relief escaped his mouth. No, he told himself, firmly. He didn't care about her. He couldn't. He shouldn't. Despite all the illogic to caring about this girl, his heart seemed to outpace his brain and he felt the maddening corner and care all the same.

Sango cleared her throat from the other end of the phone. "Rin's fine, my brother got into a…situation, and Rin came along with us. She's fine."

"Which hospital?" Seshomaru said icily.

"The general hospital," Sango answered, the surprise still audible in her quiet voice. She waited for a moment before speaking again. "So she is with you?"

Sesshomaru considered the question for a moment, and the car languished. Behind him he could barely hear the angry honks of the other drivers, and when he did, he ignored them, saying smoothly, "for now," before hanging up the phone. He pressed on the gas pedal, and he went skidding through the roads toward the hospital. Of course. That girl never failed to surprise him.

Jaken was going to suffer for this.

…

"Lord Sesshomaru!" Rin gasped in delight as she saw Sesshomaru appear through the revolving glass doors. He returned her happiness with his regularly reserved look and strode calmly over to Sango and Miroku, who watched the young, cheerful girl and cold man in complete surprise. When Rin grabbed ran closer to Sesshomaru and just touched his sleeve, he didn't even draw himself away from her. It was certainly a spectacle. Neither of them knew what to say or even think. Sesshomaru and a young girl?

"Where's Jaken?" Sesshomaru asked Rin as she ran around him in circles. She certainly wasn't hurt, at least not the way she pranced around him with such excitement that Sesshomaru couldn't understand it.

"Last time I saw him he was still at the store," Rin said. "I'm not sure if he's still at the mall, though."

Rin walked in spirals around Sesshomaru, and finally Sesshomaru put a hand down on her dark head to stop her repetitive trek like a deviant wind-up toy. His hand on her head, he barely moved his fingers to stroke her dark hair. Feeling Sesshomaru's touch, Rin nudged her head closer to him and closed her eyes contently under his hand. Sango and Miroku watched Sesshomaru carefully caress Rin's hair with expressions of complete astonishment.

"Why isn't he with you?" Seshomaru asked the girl and he finally drew his hand away.

Rin blinked her dark eyes at Sesshomaru, drawn out of her reveries when his touch was gone from her skin. "We got separated after I ran out of the store and Kohaku chased after me. Then he had an attack and that guy showed up and then we came over to the hospital."

Rin pointed to Miroku and Miroku waved at Sesshomaru with a cunning smile on his face. Sesshomaru narrowed his golden eyes.

"I didn't know you had any kids, Sesshomaru," Miroku said with a smirk. "What a surprise."

"I'm not Lord Sesshomaru's child," Rin argued.

"My mistake." Miroku smiled. "I didn't know you were into them."

Sesshomaru glared at the man. Miroku looked content.

"I suppose," continued Miroku with the same satisfaction in his voice, "that Inuyasha doesn't know about this? It certainly isn't in line with your character. I would have never guessed you'd be looking after a young girl."

"It's my business," Sesshomaru replied coolly, and he turned away and proceeded through the glass doors, commanding, "Rin, come."

Stumbling in Sesshomaru's wake, Rin turned around to Miroku and Sango one last time and waves to them.

"Bye!" she shouted, and then she followed Sesshomaru out of the hospital and into his black car.

In the lobby of the hospital Sango and Miroku stood frozen to the spot, surprise still stretched across Sango's face while Miroku watched the place where Sesshomaru and Rin had just been with a visage of amusement. He fingered his chin, thinking.

"I…can't believe it," Sango gasped. Her eyes were still wide and listless. "Why does a guy like him have that girl…?"

"I would have never guessed," Miroku said with a smile. Then he laughed and ran a hand through his tousled hair. "Those Ookami brothers never fail to surprise me."

…

Inuyasha remembered the days when his mother was still alive. Izayoi Takahashi, a woman of beauty and grace and most famously known as his mother, had been hated by the entire Ookami household. She had been a simple governess before, and now she was the illustrious mistress of the esteemed Inutaisho Ookami, a loose woman without a single cent to her name or any political connection. Just an eyesore, just like Inuyasha, the illegitimate son.

Inuyasha hated them all, all the pompous bastards who talked about prestige and eminence and treated those below them, namely him and his mother, like trash. It had taken all Inuyasha's restraint to bear their scorn without leaping for their throats.

It was with the most clarity and familiarity that Inuyasha remembered Izayoi. Although strong and graceful, it was hard for her to endure the constant day-to-day harassment of the entire Ookami household. She suffered their gossip and outward, blatant criticisms. Whore, they called her. A conniving gold-digger with a pretty face, they murmured to each other behind cupped hands. They laughed at Izayoi in her presence and made her life a living hell. And, like always, Inuyasha's father was never there when he needed him, not even to protect his beloved Izayoi.

"It's okay, Inuyasha," Izayoi told her boy again and again after he put up with the Ookami household and upper-class scorn without a word or cry. He had no place among them. Neither of them did. "It will be alright. You'll see."

It never got better, and soon, Izayoi got worse after the constant stress caused her health to begin to fail. The stress and fatigue left Izayoi open to other illnesses and soon she was in the hospital from a day to day basis. Inuyasha was in middle school then, and he never once forgot the way she persevered through the worst of it with a small, crinkled smile on her once lovely face and began to waste away on her hospital bed. Inuyasha hated everyone then, everything. He hated the Ookami household and bureaucrats who tortured Izayoi from their envy; he hated his father for having done nothing to try and save his lover; he hated his half-brother, Sesshomaru, who treated Izayoi and Inuyasha as little more than nuisances in his upper-class and esteemed world. Most importantly, Inuyasha hated himself for being unable to help his mother at all.

It was on one of those visits to the hospital with Izayoi that Inuyasha had met her for the first time. He had never thought he would meet her again, but she kept on reappearing every time in his head every time things became unbearable.

Kagome.

Inuyasha was fourteen when he saw her for the first time. Or, more appropriately, when he had burst onto the roof of the hospital and Kagome had hurled her bag straight into his face. It wasn't the best first impression in the world.

"What—?!" a younger Inuyasha gasped as he clawed the bag away from his face. He had escaped to the rooftop to avoid the misery of his mother's hopeless situation and her progressive illness. His frustration was already at its peak, and then he was hit by something, hard and squarely in the face. Inuyasha tore the bag from his face, and yelled to the open roof, "—the hell is your problem?!"

When Inuyasha hurled the bag at his feet, he was surprised to find her. She was probably the same as he was, and she was leaning against the chain-link fence of the rooftop, her short, ebony black hair tossed by the wind and tears in her swollen, blood-shot eyes of hazel. She pressed a hand to her face in shock.

"What…" she began, sniffling, and Inuyasha watched her watery eyes fill with anger as she said, "are you doing?"

Inuyasha stomped forward, shouting, "That should be my question! Why the hell did you throw your bag at me, you stupid girl?!"

"I—I panicked," Kagome answered hastily, and she turned around to wipe the tears from her eyes. She her eyes were dry and red, telltale of her once flowing tears, she faced Inuyasha resolutely and stood against the chain-link fence. Never had Inuyasha seen someone with so fierce a will unless he considered himself.

"Well, you can just sob your heart out," Inuyasha growled and turned his back on Kagome, "but I've got enough to deal with without a deranged girl attacking me."

"Do you have someone in this hospital, too?"

Inuyasha froze, and slowly, he turned around to the girl. Kagome was watching him with her unwavering gaze, the ends of her short dark hair occasionally drifting into her pale face and puffy eyes with the help of the wind.

Inuyasha stared hard at the girl, and then said in a low, guarded voice, "What do you care?"

"If you do," Kagome said simply and tightened her fingers on the chain-link fence, "then you can stay here, if you want to."

Inuyasha looked at Kagome, and saw the resolve in her eyes and none of the pity, none of the scorn that he was used to dealing with. It was just this girl who seemed so like him. Inclining his white-gold head, Inuyasha walked over to the chain-link fence and hoisted himself up with Kagome.

That was how it had all started, so simply. Every week Inuyasha came over to the hospital to visit his mother in her room, and every time he found Kagome on the roof, sometimes staring off into the distance with a dazed look on her face, other times wiping the tears roughly from her eyes.

"So your Mom is sick?" Kagome said one day as she leaned against the fence and wrapped her hands around her skirt.

"Yeah," Inuyasha said to the wind as he lay on the roof and crossed his arms beneath his head. "She wasn't that sick before, but now they think that it might be cancer. They'll never tell me when she's going to get better," Inuyasha said and gave a bitter laugh, moving his arms from beneath his head to ever his face. "The only person that matters, and nobody will tell me anything about whether she'll be okay or not."

Kagome said nothing and lowered herself onto the roof beside Inuyasha. She watched the blue sky and let Inuyasha press his arms to his eyes and stave off the tears. After a moment Inuyasha let his hands fall back to his side and he turned his face to Kagome.

"Why are you here, anyway?" He asked her.

"I'm here today for Jii-chan," Kagome said simply, her short, black hair splayed around her like unraveling shadow. "He's old now, and he keeps on throwing out his back and catching colds. Mom was worried about him, so here I am."

"Why were you here before?" Inuyasha said.

Kagome let her eyes vaguely roam the blue sky dotted with clouds for a moment, and then she pressed the side of her face to the ground, facing Inuyasha. Their faces were only inches away from each other, and Inuyasha could feel the warmth of Kagome's breath on his skin.

"I'm here," Kagome said quietly, "because someone very important to me is in here…and I don't know what to do. At first it was just for regular check-ups, but now it looks like the illness if getting worse and worse."

Without a word, Inuyasha let his hand slide into Kagome's and he touched her fingers ever so gently. He didn't remove his golden eyes from her. Returning Inuyasha's gaze with her eyes of brilliant hazel, Kagome pressed her forehead against Inuyasha and remained that way with their faces touching.

Inuyasha didn't know when he started, but soon the close friendship slowly bloomed into something more. When he sought Kagome out at the rooftop, he wasn't just looking for another lonely companion and kindred soul— he hoped for her smiles, her lovely gaze, and her touch. He wanted to go to the hospital more frequently, and not primarily for his mother, he realized with a pang of guilt. He wanted Kagome.

And then everything began to fall apart. One day, Inuyasha was at the mansion and Myoga timidly appeared at his door with his bulbous head bowed. He played with his small fingers in his lap.

"I'm afraid Lady Izayoi has passed away."

Inuyasha watched the old man, his golden eyes growing wide, and he could hear his heart stop. He couldn't breathe.

"Mother is…?" Inuyasha began, and then his throat choked up, and he ran out the door, ignoring Myoga as he called out to him.

Inuyasha didn't know how long or how far he ran, and at some point when he had made it into the hospital it had begun to rain. His legs just carried him up to his mother's room like they always did, his mind vacant, his heart caught in his throat. When he came to his senses, he was howling and struggling against the doctors and nurses in his mother's room as his mother lay, pristine and white, on her bed. He reached for her, he fought to get to her— no, no, it couldn't end like this, not this way—

"Mom!"

Inuyasha was eventually forced out of the room, and then, with their same, senseless movement, Inuyasha found himself on the roof of the hospital. The rain was pouring hard and fast now. Of course, it was on days like this that it rained. Kagome wasn't even there this time. It was just empty.

He was empty.

"Inuyasha?" A voice called out through the deluge of rain, and Inuyasha turned around to find Kagome entering the rooftop, her clothes clinging to her body like a second skin, strands of dark hair plastered to her face.

Kagome watched Inuyasha long and hard and said nothing. She merely stood in the heavy rain.

Inuyasha's face broke into a wide, bitter smile and he felt the rainwater in his mouth. It was cool and tasteless. And then he felt something warm and salty trickle into his open mouth, and Kagome watched tenderly as the tears slid down Inuyasha's face.

"She's dead," Inuyasha said slowly, with a dark smile. He felt chilled to the bone, and then he felt the rage burn and flare like fire inside him. "Now, she's dead, just like everyone always wanted. Every single one of them— and it's all their faults, those bastards! They tortured her, and now they got what they always wanted. Now she's out of their goddamned ways!"

"Inuyasha," Kagome began helpless, rain bright and shining on her face.

"They always wanted her to be gone. And now she's never coming back!" Inuyasha shouted into the rain and wind, and he couldn't tell if it was tears or raining pelting like a waterfall down his face. "That damned old man of mine didn't even try to protect her. He could have done something! He could have saved her! I—" Inuyasha said finally, and he was looking at Kagome hopelessly, feeling his heart falling into pieces, "—I could have saved her!"

"Inuyasha—"

"And I was just too weak! Too weak to do anything!" Inuyasha turned his face to the rain and felt it wash over him. He felt like he could drown there and then. "Why didn't I save her?" Inuyasha said in a weak, shaking voice.

"Inuyasha." Inuyasha felt Kagome wrap her arms around him, and she laid her dark, rain-soaked head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said in a small voice, and Inuyasha was holding her tight, his hands on her back and in her wet hair. "Inuyasha."

Kagome removed her head from Inuyasha's chest, and slowly, gently, Inuyasha cupped her face with his hands. Ever so hesitantly he pulled her in for a kiss. At first their lips just touched, as wet and tasteless as the gray rain. And then they were holding each other, pressed close, kissing long and deep, and their mouths desperately searching the other. They stayed like that in the rain.

When Inuyasha escaped to the hospital now, he didn't go for his mother, but he sought Kagome on the rooftop. He longed to hold her in his embrace, he sought the warmth of her touch, and he welcomed the taste of her bittersweet mouth.

"Why are you always at the hospital?" Inuyasha asked one day, lying on the rooftop with his mouth in Kagome's hair. Her hair had grown longer by this point, and she had grown ever so beautiful.

Kagome looked at Inuyasha, her hazel eyes blinking. "For someone important."

"Who is that someone?" Inuyasha repeated, drawing Kagome closer to him.

She smiled into his face. "Are you jealous?"

Inuyasha laid his elbow on the ground and put the side of his face in his hand. "Maybe," he said slowly.

"Maybe I won't tell you, then," Kagome laughed and flipped onto her back, facing the sky.

Looking impatiently over to Kagome, Inuyasha suddenly leaned on top of her on his hands and knees, and Kagome's hazel eyes grew wide. Her face was flushed, and Inuyasha stifled a smile.

"What do you think you're doing?" Kagome said in a low voice, her face red.

Inuyasha smiled, and lowered his face closer to Kagome's, the ends of his white-blonde hair touching her cheeks. "I'm cornering you," he replied smoothly. "Tell me who it is."

"Stop, Inuyasha—!"

"Kagome?" a clear, ringing voice rang out.

Before Inuyasha could even look for the source of the voice, Kagome had pushed him away, fiercely blushing, and she rose to her feet. That was when Inuyasha saw it.

It was a girl identical to Kagome in almost every way— she had the same sculpted face, the same dark hair that unfolded over her slender shoulders. As she walked onto the rooftop, the clean, white folds of her hospital gown sunk swept around her slim ankles, and a look passed over her face that convinced Inuyasha that she was starkly different from Kagome. In her expression, there was detachment— in her coy smile, something cooler, aloof found itself in the corners of her pale lips.

"Kikyo!" Kagome gasped, and ran over to the girl. Together, the girls looked more identical than before, and Inuyasha stared at them in shock.

Kikyo looked at Inuyasha and then at Kagome with a playful smirk. "I was wondering where you always ran off to after our visits, but I didn't expect anything like this—"

Kagome went crimson, and Inuyasha finally rose to his feet.

"Are you Kagome's boyfriend?" Kikyo asked Inuyasha. She smiled. It was a different kind of smile than Kagome's.

"Kik—"

"Yeah," Inuyasha answered simply, and Kagome glared at him. Kikyo only smiled.

"Kikyo," Kagome began, coughing, pulling her hair away from her face. Her complexion had now returned to its creamy color— well, thought Inuyasha with a smile, at least it was closer to its original peach tones instead of flaming, blushing red. "This is Inuyasha."

Kikyo gave a little smile.

"Inuyasha, this is Kikyo," Kagome finished. "She's the reason I'm here every week. She's my twin sister."

* * *

_Hope you guys liked the newest chapter. Here we finally get into the past of Kagome and Inuyasha and the mystery of Kikyo (sorry Sesshomaru and Rin- we'll get back to you guys very soon!) We'll be getting into how the twins are involved with Naraku soon... until then, I will try to update again soon, so thanks for reading and reviewing my work! It means a lot to me!_


End file.
